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511 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 


GERMANY    MISJUDGED 


AN  APPEAL  TO  INTERNATIONAL  GOOD 

WILL  IN  THE  INTEREST  OF  A 

LASTING  PEACE 


BY 

ROLAND  HUGINS 


CHICAGO  LONDON 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO. 
1916 


Copyright  by 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO. 

1916 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO  THOSE  AMERICANS  AND  ENGLISHMEN 
WHO  HAVE  HEEDED  KIPLING  WHERE 
KIPLING  HAS  NOT  HEEDED  HIMSELF: 

"IF  YOU  CAN  KEEP  YOUR  HEAD  WHEN  ALL  ABOUT  YOU 
ARE  LOSING  THEIRS   AND  BLAMING   IT   ON   YOU—" 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED. 


FOREWORD 

THERE  are  persons  who  look  upon  the  term 
"pro-German"  as  an  epithet  of  reproach.  Though 
not  one  of  these,  I  insist  that  the  term  does  not 
accurately  characterize  this  book.  The  book  is  pro- 
American.  It  is  written  from  the  American  point  of 
view,  and  with  American  interests  in  mind.  Person- 
ally I  am  not  much  w^orried  for  the  Germans,  because, 
for  one  thing,  I  am  convinced  that  they  are  entirely 
able  to  take  care  of  themselves.  But  I  am  much  con- 
cerned for  the  future  of  America. 

I  have  tried  to  analyze  the  international  situation 
from  the  facts  as  I  see  them.  I  have  written  with 
both  a  fear  and  a  hope :  a  fear  that  the  United  States, 
the  one  great  nation  that  so  far  has  stood  aloof,  might 
lose  its  head  and  join  the  carnage;  a  hope  that  Amer- 
ica, at  some  future  time,  might  contribute  effectively 
to  the  upbuilding  of  a  permanent  peace  for  the  world. 
To  my  mind  the  United  States  can  make  no  bigger 
blunder,  no  graver  historical  mistake,  than  to  abandon 
its  position  of  neutrality.  I  contend  that  it  has  no 
business  in  this  war,  no  matter  whether  the  Teutonic 
Powers  win  or  lose.  The  plunge  into  war  is  like  a 
jump  into  a  whirlpool ;  it  is  easy  enough  to  get  in,  but 
there  is  no  calm  second  thought,  and  escape  can  be 

7 


FOREWORD 

purchased  only  by  a  terrific  drain  on  vitality.  Amer- 
ica sober,  would  not  make  war;  but  America  drunk 
with  anti-German  prejudice,  might  take  the  plunge. 
To  add,  in  some  small  way,  to  that  sobriety  of  judg- 
ment that  would  make  us  pause  before  we  leap,  is  one 
of  the  chief  purposes  of  the  book. 

That  America  will  be  able  to  do  anything  construc- 
tive for  world  peace  seems  to  me  questionable.  For 
at  present  the  vision  of  America  is  clouded.  It  is  not 
anti-war,  except  in  a  vague,  sentimental  way;  it  is 
anti-German.  It  identifies  "militarism"  with  a  single 
nation.  It  does  not  see  that  militarism  in  Germany 
(and  I  do  not  deny  its  existence  there)  can  never  be 
wiped  out  by  the  pressure  of  rival  militarisms.  Guilt, 
apparently,  is  never  satisfactory  until  it  is  personal. 
Americans  in  general  have  felt  revulsion  and  horror 
at  this  war,  and  they  have  shown  a  disposition  to  fix 
the  guilt  on  somebody,  some  definite  set  of  human 
beings, — not  a  system — not  an  historical  process — but 
a  visible  and  punishable  criminal.  And  they  have  made 
the  German  people,  or  the  German  Junkers,  the  crim- 
inal. But  this  is  not  thinking,  it  is  malice.  G.  Lowes 
Dickinson  has  observed:  "I  believe  that  this  war 
...  is  a  calamity  to  civilization  unequaled,  unexam- 
pled, perhaps  irremediable;  and  that  the  only  good 
that  can  come  out  of  it  would  be  a  clearer  compre- 
hension by  ordinary  men  and  women  of  how  wars 
are  brought  about,  and  a  determination  on  their  part 
to  put  a  stop  to  them."  America  will  never  contribute 
effectively  to  the  cause  of  world  peace  until  it  sets 

8 


FOREWORD 

about  to  examine  critically  the  underlying  causes  of 
modern  war.  Such  an  examination  can  be  made  only 
when  the  purposes  and  needs  of  each  nation,  including 
Germany,  are  approached  in  a  friendly  spirit. 

I  belong,  I  think,  to  that  class  of  Americans  whose 
voice  so  far  has  been  little  heard.  For  I  am  one  of 
those  whose  sympathy  with  Germany  rests  on  rational 
rather  than  on  emotional  grounds.  This  is  a  pre- 
sumptuous claim,  perhaps,  but  one  I  can  make  fairly. 
I  have  no  German  blood — and  incidentally,  no  Irish. 
I  have  never  been  in  Germany,  and  I  have  no  ties 
with  the  Fatherland.  I  am  an  American  who  has  been 
here,  so  to  speak,  for  a  long  time, — since  about  1690. 
As  I  view  them,  these  considerations  are  not  impor- 
tant. We  are  all  Americans  together,  each  equally 
entitled  to  his  opinion.  But  there  are  so  many  haughty 
patriots  haranguing  the  country  who  seek  to  monop- 
olize "truly  American"  spokesmanship,  that  I  must 
declare  my  right  to  speak  as  an  American,  unhyphen- 
ated. 

The  four  main  chapters  of  the  book  are  reprinted 
from  The  Open  Court  for  November  and  December, 
1915,  and  for  January  and  April,  1916.  The  intro- 
ductory chapter,  "The  Myth  of  a  Demon  Enemy,"  is 
reprinted  from  the  New  York  Times  of  July  11,  1915, 
and  is  reproduced  here  because  it  expresses  in  suc- 
cinct form  the  spirit  in  which  the  whole  is  conceived. 
Three  of  the  chief  chapters  are  put  in  the  form  of 
open  letters  to  Germany,  England  and  France,  the 
three  great  nations  involved  that  may  be  said  to  be 


FOREWORD 

representative  of  Western  civilization.  The  final  chap- 
ter treats  directly  of  America.  In  reality,  however, 
the  entire  book  is  written  to  and  for  Americans, — and 
quite  as  much  for  those  whose  sympathies  are  pro- 
Ally  as  those  whose  sympathies  are  with  the  Central 
Powers.  Some  portions  of  the  discussion  deal  with 
aspects  of  opinion  and  governmental  action  pertinent 
at  the  time  of  writing,  but  the  bulk  of  it  treats  of  the 
more  fundamental  reactions  of  America  to  the  world 
war. 

I  have  tried  not  to  be  betrayed  by  heat  of  contro- 
versy into  censorious  language.  I  take  it  this  is  not 
a  time  for  Americans  to  indulge  in  venomous  accusa- 
tions, however  bad  tempers  may  be  in  Europe.  For 
after  all,  half  the  world  is  bleeding  to  death  and  the 
heart  of  humanity  is  breaking.  When  one  stops  to 
think  of  this  war,  not  in  abstractions,  but  in  particu- 
lars— what  it  means  in  individual  human  values,  he 
puts  aside  rancor,  even  though  (as  he  thinks)  he  com- 
bats untruth.  R.  H. 

Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

February  1,  1916. 


10 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

The  Myth  of  a  Demon  Enemy 13 

An  Explanation  to  Germany 18 

A  Question  for  England 43 

France  ! 66 

The  Attitude  of  America 80 

Index 112 


11 


THE  MYTH  OF  A  DEMON  ENEMY 

ONE  of  the  peculiarly  depressing  aspects  of  modern 
war  is  the  degradation  of  the  non-combatant 
mind.  The  civilian  population  goes  blind  with  intol- 
erance and  mad  with  hate.  In  war  we  credit  any 
impossible  virtue  in  ourselves  and  any  degree  of  wick- 
edness in  our  foe.  We  swallow  with  eager  gullibility 
every  tale,  plausible  or  grotesque,  of  his  cruelty,  his 
bestiality,  his  mendacity,  his  stupidity.  The  enemy 
becomes  the  scapegoat  of  the  universe,  and  we  load 
him  with  every  conceivable  attribute  ofi  evil  until  he 
looms  in  our  eyes  a  monster  of  inhuman  fiendishness. 
We  picture  him  as  the  potential  destroyer  of  every- 
thing worthy — of  liberty,  of  art,  of  democracy,  even 
of  civilization  itself.  We  do  our  narrow-minded  best 
to  belittle  his  achievements  in  science,  literature  and 
government.  We  are  the  good  white  knight,  but  he 
is  the  seven-headed  dragon  that  God  and  justice  has 
called  us  to  destroy. 

"War,"  said  an  ancient  philosopher,  "makes  men 
mild."  But  this  is  true  only  of  those  who  do  the 
actual  fighting.  In  the  trenches,  we  know,  the  German 
is  respected,  and  even  regarded  with  a  half-bantering 
affection.  The  soldier  speaks  generously  of  his  foe, 
whose  bravery  and  suffering  he  sees  and  appreciates. 

13 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

The  soldier,  moreover,  understands  the  nature  of  war- 
fare, and  does  not  cite  the  harshness  of  mihtary  opera- 
tions— which  he  himself,  in  whatever  army,  must 
practice  of  necessity — as  a  proof  of  the  enemy's  per- 
sonal depravity.  The  civilian  does  precisely  that.  Out 
of  hearing  of  the  guns  the  humility  and  reasonableness 
which  this  game  of  life  and  death  imposes  have  no 
counterpart.  The  millions  of  non-combatants,  pricked 
daily  by  poisoned  pens,  join  in  an  orgy  of  vilification, 
brandish  lies  about  the  enemy,  chant  their  hymns  of 
hate,  and  curse  when  they  pretend  to  pray.  It  is  even 
probable  that  a  non-militarist  democracy  runs  into  this 
moral  vitiation  more  easily  than  a  military  autocracy. 
For  where  great  armies  must  be  raised  by  volunteer- 
ing, abuse  of  the  adversary  is  elevated  to  a  public  duty. 
The  spirit  of  the  people  must  be  aroused,  it  is  said; 
we  must  be  worked  up  and  kept  up  to  the  fighting 
pitch,  or  rather  to  the  recruiting  pitch,  by  fair  means 
or  foul.  The  press  takes  on  an  inflammatory  and 
scurrilous  tone.  A  premium  is  put  upon  Billingsgate. 
To  speak  a  fair  and  kindly  word  for  the  enemy  is 
considered  traitorous,  and  to  degrade  the  nation  into 
a  mob  is  looked  upon  as  a  patriotic  service. 

Of  course  the  better  men  and  women  of  every 
nation  will  resist  this  popular  delirium.  It  is  one  of 
the  proofs  of  England's  greatness  that  there  has  been 
a  constant  stream  of  protests  in  her  papers  and  jour- 
nals against  the  slander-mongers.  The  cheap  jour- 
nalist and  the  penny-a-liner  mixes  his  ink  with  gall, 
but  the  cultivated  Englishman  speaks  with  moderation. 

14 


THK   MVTII   OF   A    DEMON   ENEMY 

It  ought  to  be  possible  for  a  democracy  to  make  war 
with  dignity.  Battles  cannot  be  won  by  insults,  and 
mud  is  not  even  an  effective  weapon  of  defense ;  but 
it  is  easy  to  befoul  our  own  hands  and  minds.  A  high 
moral  tone  is  a  nation's  first  duty  to  itself,  and  it  can 
be  won  only  by  a  vigilant  self-control.  Neither  a  just 
cause  nor  victory  will  in  itself  prevent  a  spiritual  rout. 

There  are  certain  obvious  and  human  facts  about 
Germany  that  we  should  keep  in  mind,  both  now  and 
hereafter.  Germany  is  not  a  Force,  a  Power,  a  His- 
torical Tendency,  or  a  Beast,  but  only  a  number  of 
Germans,  speaking  a  different  language,  but  funda- 
mentally like  any  other  collection  of  men,  women  and 
children.  They  are  now,  and  have  been  in  the  past, 
a  great  people,  who  command  our  respect  in  peace  for 
their  industrial  and  intellectual  exertions,  and  in  war 
for  their  valor  and  their  power.  Furthermore,  they 
are  convinced,  like  each  of  the  other  nations  at  war, 
that  they  are  right  in  this  conflict.  In  that  cause  they 
pour  out  their  blood  like  water ;  and  they  are  suffering 
as  few  peoples  have  suffered.  Germany,  within  her 
rims  of  flame,  is  a  nation  in  bandages  and  black;  by 
day  her  land  rings  with  the  clangor  of  arms  and  shouts 
of  defiance,  but  at  night  God  hears  there  but  one 
sound,  the  sobbing  of  women.  Agony  and  death  mean 
the  same  thing  to  a  Teuton  as  to  any  other  mortal, 
and  heartbreak  is  just  as  hard  to  bear. 

Deeper  and  more  lasting  than  any  struggles  of  race, 
or  pride,  or  national  advantage  are  the  human  verities. 
Unless  we  hold  to  these  we  shall  lose  our  soul,  though 

15 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

we  win  a  world.  The  true  note  of  sane  sympathy 
and  understanding  has  been  struck  by  an  EngHsh 
writer  not  widely  known  in  this  country,  A.  Clutton- 
Brock,  who  contributes  to  the  literary  supplement  of 
the  London  Times.  Permit  me  to  quote  one  or  two 
of  his  admirable  paragraphs : 

"We  know  that  we  are  not  what  the  Germans  think 
us,  whatever  our  sins  may  be.  We  know  that  Eng- 
land is  not  an  abstraction,  cold  and  greedy  and  treach- 
erous, but  a  country  of  people  whose  virtues  we  love 
and  whose  vices  we  extenuate  because  they  are  our 
own.  But  Germany — she  seems  to  us  now  to  speak 
with  one  voice  as  if  she  were  an  abstraction,  and  that 
voice  says  always  the  same  venomous  things  against 
the  abstract  England  of  her  evil  dream.  But  she  is 
not  an  abstraction  any  more  than  England  is.  She, 
too,  is  a  country  of  men  and  women  who  love  their 
own  virtues  and  extenuate  their  own  faults;  and  they 
also  hear  of  the  evil  things  which  England  says  of 
them,  and  think  that  England  is  pouring  out  a  hatred 
long  nursed  and  attempting  a  destruction  long  planned. 
What  an  ugly  word  'Germany'  sounds  to  us  now ;  yet 
to  them  it  is  a  music  which  sets  them  marching,  and 
they  will  suffer  and  die  for  it,  as  we  for  England. 
Every  man  has  dignity  who  is  ready  to  die  for  a  cause, 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad,  for  men  will  not  die  for 
causes  that  do  not  seem  right  to  them ;  and  the  Ger- 
mans, we  know,  are  ready  to  die  in  herds  and  droves, 
as  we  put  it,  for  Germany.  And  yet  each  German  to 
himself  remains  a  single  human  being,  with  his  indi- 

16 


THE  MYTH  OF  A  DEMON  ENEMY 

vidual  hopes  and  fears,  witli  a  wife  and  children  pray- 
ing for  him  at  home,  with  an  immortal  soul  that  im- 
poses this  hard  discipline  upon  his  flesh. 

"These  hosts  are  not  inhuman,  whatever  evil  de- 
sign has  ranged  them  against  us,  but  men  like  ourselves 
to  whom  we  also  seem  inhuman  hosts;  and  if  some 
voice  from  heaven  could  suddenly  speak  the  truth  to 
us  the  weapons  would  drop  from  our  hands  and  we 
would  laugh  in  each  other's  faces  until  we  wept  to 
think  of  all  the  dead  that  could  not  share  the  truth 
with  us,  and  the  wounded  who  could  not  be  cured 
by  it,  and  the  widows  and  orphans  to  whom  it  could 
not  give  back  their  husbands  and  fathers.  For  the 
truth,  the  ultimate  truth,  behind  all  arguments  and 
national  conflicts  and  all  the  pride  of  victory  and  the 
shame  of  defeat,  is  that  we  are  men  in  whom  the  spirit 
is  stronger  than  the  flesh,  in  whom  the  spirit  desires 
love  more  than  the  flesh  desires  hatred.  We  have  a 
strange  way  of  showing  that  now ;  but  whatever  our 
own  delusions,  each  nation  knows  that  it  is  fighting 
the  delusions  of  the  other ;  and  against  them  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  to  fight  as  against  the  hallucinated  fury  of 
a  madman.  Yet  the  fighting  is  best  done  as  good 
soldiers  do  it  who  know  that  their  enemies  are  men, 
not  devils,  and  who  fear  them  the  less  because  they 
do  not  hate." 


17 


AN  EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

THE  United  States,  my  German  friends,  has  main- 
tained relations  of  amity  and  good-will  with  your 
country  for  a  century  and  more ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  this  historic  friendship  will  continue  undiminished 
through  the  world  war.  At  the  very  outbreak  of  hos- 
tilities, however,  menacing  undercurrents  of  unpleas- 
antness were  set  in  motion,  and  they  have  grown  stead- 
ily in  volume  and  strength.  As  soon  as  you  became  defi- 
nitely aware  that  sentiment  here  was  running  against 
you,  you  were  amazed ;  and  that  amazement  gave  way 
after  a  time  to  irritation.  You  could  not  understand, 
you  said,  how  this  republic  should  have  been  misled  by 
British  sophistry.  Later  you  learned  that  our  bankers 
were  loaning  millions  to  your  enemies,  and  that  our 
manufacturers  were  doing  a  stupendous  business  in 
supplying  the  Allies  with  explosives  and  other  muni- 
tions of  war.  Then  your  irritation  changed  to  bitter- 
ness and  your  papers,  with  Teutonic  candor,  did  not 
attempt  to  conceal  their  resentment  towards  Germany's 
"invisible  enemy." 

There  has  been  a  similar  growth  of  antagonistic  feel- 
ing in  America.  The  bulk  of  our  press  took  an  un- 
friendly attitude  toward  you  as  early  as  August  1, 
1914.     Your  invasion  of  Belgium  and  the  subsequent 

18 


AN   EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

military  measures  which  you  employed  there  greatly 
inlensifK'd  the  hostility  of  some  sections  of  American 
opinion.  The  current  ran  against  you  from  that  time 
on.  There  were  intervals,  it  is  true,  when  your  cause 
here  aj^peared  to  be  gaining  ground,  particularly  during 
the  brilliant  championship  of  Dr.  Dernburg.  But  the 
sinking  of  the  Lusitania  by  a  German  submarine  caused 
anti-German  feeling  to  flame  out  afresh.  The  ofticial 
relations  of  the  two  nations  are  now  strained;  and 
they  may  be  worse  before  they  are  better. 

To  say  that  this  situation  is  distressing  to  many  of 
us  in  America  is  to  put  the  matter  mildly.  The  mutual 
misunderstandings  will  not  easily  be  cleared  away. 
May  I  attempt  to  explain  to  you  why  Americans — the 
majority,  that  is — have  sided  against  you?  It  will  be 
hard  for  you  to  understand  the  true  reasons.  The 
obvious  and  usual  explanations  do  not  suffice.  It  was 
not  because  your  cable  was  cut,  for  news  from  Berlin 
and  Vienna  reaches  us  regularly  by  wireless.  It  is  not 
because  the  German  point  of  view  is  unknown.  We 
have  had  no,  censorship  in  this  country,  and  you  no 
lack  of  able  defenders.  Since  the  beginning  of  the 
war  German-Amricans  have  protested  vehemently 
against  the  prevailing  antagonism,  and  our  magazines 
and  newspapers  have  published  many  telling  argu- 
ments from  pro-German  pens.  It  is  not  because  Amer- 
icans dislike  Germany  and  things  German.  Before 
the  war  there  may  have  been  prejudice  in  some  quar- 
ters against  Germany ;  but  there  was  also  prejudice 
against    England    and    against    Russia.      If    German 

19 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

achievements  in  art,  science  and  government  are  now 
belittled,  it  is  because  a  recent  partisanship  has  chilled 
the  admiration  rightly  due  you  as  a  great  people. 

No,  the  blindness  and  intolerance  now  so  conspicu- 
ous are  not  the  causes  of  our  bias,  but  rather  its  symp- 
toms. You  will  entirely  fail  to  understand  the  attitude 
of  the  typical  American  of  intelligence  unless  you  see 
that  he  thinks  himself  fair  and  just.  He  admits  to 
no  prejudice;  he  scoffs  at  the  idea  that  he  is  the 
victim  of  English  lies  or  sophistry ;  he  believes  he  has 
arrived  at  a  reasoned  judgment  after  an  impartial  ex- 
amination of  the  evidence.  I  think  the  American 
errs,  but  I  know  that  he  errs  in  good  faith.  He  has 
rendered  a  decision  against  you  because  in  his  mind 
certain  large  charges  have  been  proved  against  you. 
These  charges  may  be  grouped  under  the  four  follow- 
ing heads : 

First,  that  you,  the  people  of  Germany,  or  your 
military  caste,  started  this  war,  and  made  Europe  a 
shambles  in  an  attempt  to  dominate  world  politics. 

Second,  that  your  invasion  and  devastation  of 
Belgium  was  a  legal  and  moral  crime  which  nothing 
can  excuse  or  to  appreciable  degree  palliate. 

Third,  that  you  make  war  with  ruthlessness  and 
brutality,  and  disregard  in  the  pursuit  of  your  military 
ends  the  rules  of  international  law  and  the  dictates 
of  humanity. 

Fourth,  that  your  victory  would  be  detrimental  to 
civilization,  leading  to  a  militaristic  domination  which 
would  ultimately  threaten  the  peace  of  all  democratic 
countries,  including  the  United  States. 

20 


AN   EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

These  accusations  undoubtedly  seem  to  you  exag- 
gerated, absurd,  grossly  unjust.  So  they  are,  consid- 
ered from  any  viewpoint  which  includes  knowledge 
of  and  sympathy  for  the  German  people.  But  let  me' 
assure  you  that  they  are  held  in  all  seriousness  by 
thousands  and  thousands  of  Americans  who  are  quite 
above  the  charge  of  either  stupidity  or  hypocrisy. 
Their  attitude  results  from  a  peculiar  logic  and  their 
previous  point  of  view. 

II 

Americans,  you  should  understand,  were  surprised 
at  this  war.  Yourselves,  like  Russians,  Frenchmen, 
Englishmen,  who  have  been  living  for  two  decades 
under  the  shadow  of  a  possible  European  conflict,  saw 
in  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  the  clash  of  deep  his- 
torical forces.  But  Americans  were  literally  bowled 
over  with  astonishment.  They  had  been  listening  to 
the  soothing  assurances  of  pacifists,  and  the  insincere 
professions  of  statesmen,  until  they  were  hypnotized 
into  believing  that  a  world  war  was  "impossible."  And 
when  the  war  did  come  they  hit  upon  the  most  obvious 
explanation :  that  some  nation  had  conspired  in  its  own 
interest  to  upset  the  sacred  status  quo.  America  im- 
mediately set  herself  up  as  judge  to  determine  who 
was  "guilty,"  and  straightway  fixed  the  blame  on  you. 

Germany  was  selected  as  the  culprit  because  the 
surface  case  was  against  you.  You  had  backed  up 
Austria-Hungary  in  an  attack  on  the  small  nation 
Scrvia.     You  had  sent  out  twenty-four-hour  ultima- 

21 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

tums  and  made  the  formal  declarations  of  war  on  both 
Russia  and  France.  You  had  drawn  in  England  by 
violating  the  neutrality  of  a  little  country  England 
had  pledged  to  support.  And  so  the  surface  case  was 
complete ;  and  this  is  precisely  the  case  which  your 
enemies  rigged  up  against  you  in  their  White,  Orange, 
Yellow,  Gray  and  Blue  Books.  America  accepted  the 
indictment  at  almost  face  value. 

Does  it  seem  preposterous  that  so  simple,  so  naive  a 
view  of  European  politics  could  seriously  be  enter- 
tained? Does  it  appear  ridiculous  to  you  that  the 
significance  of  events  should  be  judged  by  their  se- 
quence in  time  rather  than  by  their  causal  connections, 
or  that  the  incidents  of  a  brief  crisis  should  be  given 
more  weight  than  all  the  antecedent  issues  out  of 
which  the  crisis  arose?  Well,  such  is  the  mind  of 
average  America.  You  must  remember  that  we  stand 
outside  of  the  whirl  of  world  politics,  and  are  not 
accustomed  to  penetrate  the  shams  of  cabinets  and  the 
intrigues  of  diplomats.  In  particular  the  editors  who 
control  our  newspapers  and  magazines,  and  who  to 
some  extent  do  "mold"  public  opinion,  are  usually 
without  a  sound  European  perspective,  and  often  dis- 
play, in  their  quick  but  cocksure  judgments  of  affairs 
outside  our  borders,  a  schoolboy  naivete  and  a  pro- 
vincial gullibility.  They  think  of  states  as  persons, 
who  act  on  single  and  sentimental  motives. 

But  that  is  not  all.  America  is  not  entirely  made  up 
of  half-educated  journalists  and  people  who  follow 
their  opinions.     Men  of  culture  and  travel,  who  take 

22 


AN    EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

a  more  sophisticated  view  of  international  affairs,  have 
joined  in  your  condemnation.  They,  too,  hold  you 
"guilty."  And  this,  I  think,  traces  to  one  cause:  a 
failure  to  understand  the  true  nature  and  policy  of 
Russia.  The  "bear  that  walks  like  a  man"  has  been 
(luite  siiouldered  out  of  sight  by  England.  You  as 
Germans  realize  that  the  controversy  which  led  directly 
up  to  the  war  was  a  Russo-German  quarrel.^  You 
comprehend  the  politics  of  the  Balkans,  where  bribery, 
assassination,  and  savage  "exterminations"  serve  in 
lieu  of  diplomacy.  You  know  that  it  was  Russia's 
unyielding  mobilization  on  two  frontiers  which  pre- 
cipitated the  present  struggle.  But  Americans  do  not 
sense  these  things.  From  the  beginning  of  the  war 
Russia  has  been  systematically  and  shamelessly  white- 
washed. We  are  being  fed  with  talk  about  Russia's 
liberalization  at  the  very  time  when  the  Russian  gov- 
ernment is  throwing  labor  leaders  into  prison,  exiling 
her  Liberals  to  Siberia,  instituting  new  pogroms  against 
the  Jews,  and  proceeding  with  a  relentless  Russifica- 
tion  of  Finland.  We  are  constantly  invited  to  admire 
"the  .soul  of  the  Slav"  as  exemplified  in  Tolstoy, 
Dostoyevsky  and  Turgenieff,  as  though  the  intellectuals 
of  Russia  were  not  a  small  class  among  one  hundred 
and  seventy  millions  which  sufiFers  a  living  martyrdom 
in  revolt  against  the  dominant  and  inhuman  autocracy. 
W'hat  G.  Lowes  Dickinson  recently  said  to  English- 
men might  be  addressed  with  even  more  force  to 
Americans:     "Since  there  has  been  in  Russia  a  class 

'Brailsford,  II.   N.,   The  Origins  of  the  Great   War. 

23 


GERMANY    MISJUDGED 

of  thinkers  and  of  writers  that  class  has  given  all  its 
energy  to  destroy  the  power  and  discredit  the  ideas 
of  the  Russian  government.  Persecuted  with  a  horror 
of  persecution  of  which  Englishmen  can  form  but  the 
palest  image  (for  such  experiences  lie  outside  our 
ken),  exiled,  imprisoned,  tortured,  by  hundreds  and 
by  thousands,  they  have  never  ceased  to  protest,  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  against  the  whole  conception 
of  the  state  which  animates  the  soulless  bureaucracy 
of  Russia." 

And  so  the  American,  forgetting  Russia,  and  with 
his  eyes  on  Germany,  France,  Belgium  and  England, 
declares  you  the  aggressor.  May  I  presume  to  give 
you  my  personal  view  of  the  burden  of  responsibility? 
In  one  sense,  the  ultimate  sense,  I  cannot  exempt  you 
from  all  blame.  Your  government  has,  like  all  the 
governments  of  Europe,  been  concerning  itself  with 
the  balance  of  power,  and  with  imperialistic  projects. 
It  has  demanded  a  voice  in  world  affairs,  its  place  in 
the  sun.  The  creation  of  a  great  army,  and  especially 
the  building  of  a  big  navy,  were  not  wholly  uncon- 
nected with  these  ambitions.  In  this  you  were  merely 
part  of  the  European  system,  for  the  world  today  is 
a  militarist  world.  You  were  no  deeper  in  it  than 
England,  which  spent  far  more  money  on  its  military 
and  naval  equipment,  nor  France,  which  had  a  greater 
proportion  of  its  population  under  arms.  If  you  were 
better  prepared  it  was  only  on  account  of  certain  quali- 
ties in  your  character,  of  thoroughness,  of  punctuality, 
of    scientific   versatility,   of   genius   for   organization, 

24 


AN  EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

which  are  just  as  conspicuous  in  the  arts  of  peace  as 
of  war.  Each  of  the  chancellories  of  Europe  plotted 
for  selfish  national  advantages — advantages  which  had 
very  little  real  significance  for  the  masses  in  any  coun- 
try— and  bent  its  chief  efforts  to  forming  alliances 
which  would  shift  the  balance  of  power  in  its  favor. 
To  that  system  of  rival  alliances  must  be  ascribed  this 
collapse  of  civilization ;  for  fundamentally  the  conflict 
on  its  negative  side  is  a  war  of  mutual  fears,  and  on 
its  positive  side  a  war  of  imperial  ambitions.  Thereby 
the  system  stands  forever  condemned,  as  must  any 
system  whch  causes  the  slaughter  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, and  brings  heartbreak  to  a  million  homes.  The 
war  itself  is  the  great  tragedy.  The  wreck  of  any  na- 
tional ambitions  is  a  paltry  calamity  by  the  side  of  it, 
and  the  fulfillment  of  no  national  hopes  can  compen- 
sate for  it. 

But  once  granting  the  fundamental  truth  that  the 
world  of  today  is  a  militaristic  world,  the  part  you 
Germans  have  played  in  it  has  been  a  notably  inof- 
fensive and  honorable  one.  You  have  kept  the  peace 
for  forty  years,  while  every  other  great  nation  went 
to  war.  You  have  seen  England  and  France  each  add, 
by  military  aggression  or  threat  of  it,  four  million 
square  miles  of  colonial  territory  to  their  possessions, 
while  you  added  one  million, — mostly  worthless  land. 
You  saw  your  legitimate  projects  for  expansion  balked 
again  and  again  by  English  and  French  diplomacy,  in 
Africa,  in  Asia,  in  the  Balkans.  You  watched  the 
growing  menace  of  Russia,  as,  financed  by  French  and 

25 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

British  gold,  she  increased  her  military  resources,  built 
strategic  railroads,  and  marshalled  her  half-barbarous 
millions.  And  when  Russia  threw  down  the  challenge 
you  accepted  it.  You  were  fighting  for  yourselves  a 
preventative  war,  and  for  your  ally  Austria-Hungary 
a  defensive  war. 

Your  statesmen  were  entirely  honest  when  they  said 
in  the  German  White  Paper ; 

"Had  the  Servians  been  allowed,  with  the  help  of 
Russia  and  France,  to  endanger  the  integrity  of  the 
neighboring  monarchy  much  longer,  the  consequence 
must  have  been  the  gradual  disruption  of  Austria,  and 
the  subjection  of  the  whole  Slav  world  to  the  Russian 
scepter,  with  the  result  that  the  position  of  the  German 
race  in  central  Europe  would  have  become  untenable." 

You  knew  that  the  Pan-Slav  movement,  engineered 
from  St.  Petersburg,  menaced  Austria  directly  and 
yourself  indirectly.  What  nonsense  then  to  say  that 
Russia  entered  the  war  out  of  sympathy  for  her  little 
Slav  brothers,  the  Serbs !  Russia  had  recently  watched 
the  humiliation  of  her  little  Slav  brothers,  the  Bulgars, 
with  composure,  and  even  with  satisfaction.  For  Bul- 
garia had  broken  loose  from  Russian  influence,  but  the 
Servians  were  Russian  tools.  Further — and  here  is  a 
point  ignored  in  most  of  the  "histories"  written  by 
Englishmen  and  Americans — Austria  under  pressure 
from  your  government  modified  her  demands  on  Servia 
before  she  mobilized  on  August  1.  She  conceded  the 
only  point  on  which  Russia,  even  from  an  imperialistic 
standpoint,  could  be  interested,  the  territorial  integrity 

26 


AN    EXPLAXATIOX  TO  GERMANY 

and  sovereignty  of  Servia.  Ikit  Russia,  certain  of  the 
co-operation  of  France,  and  confident  of  the  support 
of  Great  Britain,  moved  from  first  to  last  for  war. 
She  was  the  first  of  the  powers  to  mobihze.  She  per- 
sisted in  tliat  mobilization  despite  your  warning  that 
it  could  be  interpreted  in  only  one  way.  It  was  then 
that  you  saw  parley  was  futile;  you  sent  your  ulti- 
matums, and  mobilized  to  meet  the  double  menace. 

There  are  Americans  who,  by  some  freak  of  rea- 
soning, declare  that  France  was  "attacked"  by  you — 
France,  who  had  lent  herself  body  and  soul  to  the 
designs  of  the  Russian  autocracy!  France,  whose  an- 
swer to  your  inquiry  about  her  position  was  to  call 
up  her  reserves !  No  nation,  however  confident  of  its 
strength,  would  prefer  to  fight  Russia  and  France 
together  rather  than  Russia  alone.  You  know  who 
made  the  "attack." 

Ill 

The  invasion  of  Belgium  is  considered  in  this  coun- 
try the  strongest  count  in  the  indictment  against  you ; 
nothing  carries  such  conviction  of  German  perfidy  to 
tile  mind  of  the  American  as  your  treatment  of  a 
pledge  to  respect  her  neutrality  as  a  "scrap  of  paper ;" 
and  many  go  about  declaring  that  America  disgraced 
herself  among  the  nations  by  not  officially  protesting 
against  this  act  of  unrighteousness.  For  myself,  this 
hue  and  cry  over  Belgium  seems  one  of  the  least  sensi- 
ble aspects  of  American  discussion.  I  cannot  but  ad- 
mire the  bold  words  of  the  German  Chancellor  in  the 
Reichstag : 

27 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

"Gentlemen,  we  are  now  in  a  state  of  necessity,  and 
necessity  knows  no  law.  Our  troops  have  occupied 
Luxemburg  and  perhaps  are  already  on  Belgian  soil. 
Gentlemen,  that  is  contrary  to  the  dictates  of  inter- 
national law.  .  .  .  The  wrong — I  speak  openly — that 
we  are  committing  we  will  endeavor  to  make  good  as 
soon  as  our  military  goal  has  been  reached.  Anybody 
who  is  threatened  as  we  are  threatened,  and  is  fighting 
for  his  possessions,  has  only  one  thought — how  he  is  to 
hack  his  way  through." 

That  statement  is  one  of  the  few  sincere  utterances 
heard  from  any  European  statesman  since  the  war 
began.  It  rings  true.  You  were  terribly  threatened; 
you  had  to  strike  through  Belgium  or  court  ruin.  Any 
nation  in  your  predicament  would  have  done  the  same 
thing.  G.  Bernard  Shaw  put  the  matter  squarely  be- 
fore Americans  early  in  the  war,  when  he  told  them : 
"I  think,  for  example,  that  if  Russia  made  a  descent 
on  your  continent  under  circumstances  which  made  it 
essential  to  the  maintenance  of  your  national  freedom 
that  you  should  move  an  army  through  Canada,  you 
would  ask  our  leave  to  do  so  and  take  it  by  force  if 
we  did  not  grant  it  to  you.  I  may  reasonably  suspect, 
even  if  all  our  statesmen  raise  a  shriek  of  denial,  that 
we  should  take  a  similar  liberty  under  similar  circum- 
stances in  the  teeth  of  all  the  scraps  of  paper  in  our 
Foreign  Office  dustbin." 

That  is  the  true  British  view,  not  the  sniveling  cant 
over  the  sanctity  of  treaties.  A  recent  English  his- 
torian^ asked,  in  speaking  of  the  seizure  of  the  Danish 

m.   W.   y.   Temperley,  Life  of  Canning,   1905. 

28 


AX   EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

fleet  at  Copenhagen  in  1807,  "Would  it  have  been  any 
satisfaction,  if  we  had  sunk  under  the  pressure  from 
Bonaparte,  to  have  died  with  our  eyes  fixed  on  Pufifen- 
dorf  and  the  law  of  nations?" 

You  can  see,  however,  why  the  plea  of  self-preser- 
vation carries  little  weight  here.  The  American 
throws  aside  the  whole  argument  from  necessity,  to 
you  so  conclusive,  because,  as  I  have  explained,  he 
believes  you  the  aggressor.  He  regards  the  invasion 
of  Belgium  as  a  dastardly  detail  in  a  sinister  campaign 
to  conquer  the  world.  Furthermore,  England  has  made 
all  the  capital  possible  out  of  your  breach  of  law. 
England's  declaration  of  war  followed  your  violation 
of  Belgian  neutrality,  and  she  alleged  that  as  her 
cause  for  entry.  It  was  a  lucky  stroke  for  the  cabal 
of  politicians  that  controlled  Britain,  for  they  had 
committed  the  naval  and  military  forces  of  the  Empire 
to  France  in  secret  agreements  while  they  had  openly 
denied  these  arrangements  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
They  needed  an  excuse  before  the  country,  and  Bel- 
gium furnished  it  to  them.  Sir  Edward  Grey  and  his 
faction  did  not  stage-manage  England's  negotiations 
for  their  influence  on  neutral  opinion,  but  for  their 
influence  on  British  public  opinion  and  the  recruiting 
campaign.  Nevertheless  it  had  its  effect  here.  Curi- 
ously enough  there  exists  in  England  a  strong  group 
of  protest  which  is  not  for  a  moment  taken  in  by  the 
miserable  sham  of  Grey,  Churchill  and  the  rest  that 
this  is  a  "war  to  preserve  international  law"  or  a  "war 
to  end  war"  or  anything  else  on  Britain's  part  but  a 

29 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

war  of  imperialistic  jealousy  from  top  to  bottom.  But 
America,  sentimental,  credulous,  self-righteous,  in  the 
face  of  the  facts,  in  the  face  of  England's  record,  be- 
lieves that  England  is  fighting  for  the  rights  of  small 
nations. 

It  is  not  reasonable  to  take  tragically  the  violation 
of  Belgium's  neutrality  because  there  was  very  little 
neutrality  there  to  violate.  She  had  practically  allied 
herself  with  France  and  England.  To  enter  into  se- 
cret military  agreements  with  two  of  the  guarantors 
of  her  neutrality,  ostensibly  for  "defense"  but  actually 
to  the  detriment  of  a  third  guarantor,  was  not  playing 
the  game  fairly.  Roland  G.  Usher,  a  writer  who  has 
attained  prominence  in  this  country  by  his  discussions 
of  European  affairs,  wrote  in  the  Nezv  Republic, 
November  28,  1914: 

"The  vital  difficulty  in  this  question  of  neutrality 
was  and  is  that  the  territory  of  Belgium  was  not  and 
is  not  neutral  ground.  It  is  literally  the  front  door  to 
France  and  the  side  door  to  Germany,  and  its  posses- 
sion by  either  is  so  dangerous  to  the  other  that  the 
moment  war  breaks  out  or  even  becomes  probable, 
Belgium  is  either  a  part  of  Germany  or  a  part  of 
France,  and  hostile  territory  for  whichever  of  the  two 
does  not  hold  it.  .  .  .  Whatever  the  diplomatic  facts 
may  be,  whatever  the  technicalities  of  alliances  and 
treaties  eventually  prove  to  have  been,  Belgium  was 
as  clearly  an  ally  of  France  as  England  was.  The 
Belgian  army  and  its  dispositions,  the  Belgian  forts  on 
the  German  frontier,  were  prepared  w-ith  the  advice, 

30 


AN   EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

at  least,  of  English  and  French  generals.  Plans  for 
the  co-operation  of  the  three  armies  were  undoubtedly 
made.  Let  us  not  quibble  over  the  question  whether 
this  was  an  infringement  of  neutrality.  The  Belgians 
knew — let  us  say  it  once  more — that  the  neutrality  of 
Belgium  was  a  fiction  because  Belgium  was  not  neu- 
tral ground." 

Quite  so.  Belgium  was  not  neutral  because  she  had 
thrown  her  sympathies  to  the  French,  and  because  she 
had  connived  with  your  recognized  enemies  for  the 
employment  of  her  military  forces.  You  had  a  reason- 
able suspicion  that  she  w'ould  not  view  a  French  viola- 
tion of  her  neutrality  in  the  same  light  as  a  German 
violation.  Few  Americans  realize  what  the  strategic 
situation  was.  They  conceive  of  Belgium  merely  as 
an  easy  road  to  France,  and  the  sole  purpose  of  your 
invasion  to  strike  a  swift  blow  at  France  in  order  to 
be  able  later  to  turn  and  deal  with  Russia.  But  there 
was  a  more  vital  matter  involved.  Belgium  borders 
on  the  most  vulnerable  portion  of  Germany,  the  great 
industrial  district  of  Westphalia,  which  includes  among 
other  vital  centers  Essen  and  the  Krupp  gun  works. 
Essen,  though  east  of  the  Rhine,  is  less  than  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  from  Antwerp.  Cologne,  Diissel- 
dorf  and  Krcfeld  are  nearer.  The  empire  would  be 
prostrate  once  this  prosperous  and  thickly  populated 
region  of  factories,  blast  furnaces  and  steel  mills  fell 
into  hostile  hands.  It  is  an  open  secret  that  the  Eng- 
lish military  leaders  had  planned  in  a  war  with  you  to 
blockade  your  ports  by  sea  and  enter  Westphalia  by 

31 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

land,  and  so  hold  Germany  by  the  throat.  As  a  road  to 
Paris  Belgium  was  an  advantage  to  you;  as  a  gate  to 
Essen  it  was  a  warrant  of  death.  Through  Belgium 
you  could  strike  France  a  blow  in  the  face,  but  through 
Belgium  France  could  stab  you  in  the  back.  That  was 
the  nature  of  the  military  necessity. 

You  suspected,  with  reason,  Belgium's  good  faith. 
The  documents  found  in  the  archives  of  the  Belgian 
general  staff  in  Antwerp  merely  confirmed  in  part  facts 
already  thoroughly  well  known  to  your  military 
authorities.  But  why,  asks  the  American,  didn't  Ger- 
many wait  to  see  if  France  or  England  intended  to 
violate  Belgian  neutrality?  That  is  the  whole  point. 
You  couldn't  wait.  In  our  Southwest  when  a  man 
reaches  for  his  gun  we  do  not  expect  the  other  dispu- 
tant to  see  what  use  will  be  made  of  the  gun  before  he 
draws  his  own.  He  acts  on  a  presumption.  Men  who 
refuse  to  act  on  that  sort  of  presumption  soon  have 
heirs  reading  their  wills.  You  could  not  take  the 
chance  of  having  Belgium  used  as  a  weapon  to  crush 
you. 

The  destruction  which  hit  Belgium,  it  is  true,  was  a 
terrible  penalty  for  her  dereliction,  or  that  of  her 
military  rulers.  We  live  in  a  world  where,  either  for 
the  nation  or  the  individual,  the  punishment  rarely  fits 
the  crime.  When  men  play  with  fire  they  may  be 
frightfully  burnt;  and  war  is  the  only  fire  that  com- 
pares with  hell.  The  apologists  and  mourners  for 
Belgium  usually  contend  that  she  was  justified  in  seek- 
ing  covert   aid    against  the   German   menace,   which 

32 


AN   EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

proved  to  be  real.  Dut  she  would  have  had  a  thousand 
times  better  chance  to  escape  disaster  had  she  practised 
a  real  neutrality  and  not  one  interpreted  to  fit  her  sup- 
posed interests.  When  history  makes  its  final  reckon- 
ing, I  am  sure,  Belgium  will  not  be  found  the  "black 
indelible  blot"  on  your  name  which  your  enemies 
would  place  there.  At  least  you  have  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  you  went  about  the  business  like  men, 
openly  and  frankly,  without  the  subterfuge  and 
hypocrisy  practised  by  the  other  nations  concerned. 

IV 

Barbarians!    Huns! 

From  the  beginning  of  the  war  your  foes  have  car- 
ried on  against  you  a  campaign  of  atrocity  tales  as 
unscrupulous  and  mendacious  as  that  conducted  by  the 
Greeks  against  the  Bulgars  in  the  Second  Balkan  War. 
The  Belgians  issued  an  official  report  of  alleged  Ger- 
man barbarities,  and  the  French  and  English  followed 
suit.  Viscount  Bryce,  well  and  favorably  known  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  lent  his  name  to  the  English 
version.  These  canards  are  widely  believed  in  Amer- 
ica, but  chiefly,  I  think,  by  those  who  wilfully  want  to 
believe — those  whose  prejudice  blinds  them  to  im- 
partial evidence.  Responsible  American  newspaper 
correspondents,  returned  from  the  front  where  they 
had  every  opportunity  to  investigate,  have  exposed  the 
fraud  again  and  again.  Your  own  official  document 
on  the  conduct  of  war  by  the  Belgians  more  than 
exonerates  you  for  the  reprisal  measures  you  took. 
But  these  were  not  "atrocities"  as  advertised. 

33 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

Of  course  no  one  will  assert  that  the  sweep  of  your 
armies  through  Belgium  and  France  was  accomplished 
without  occasional  instances  of  pillage,  rape  and  mur- 
der. Such  sporadic  lapses  into  crime  are  to  be  expected 
in  war  time.  Business  is  business,  says  the  American ; 
in  a  far  truer  sense,  war  is  war.  We  have  reason  to 
believe,  however,  that  the  iron  discipline  of  the  Prus- 
sian armies,  unequaled  anywhere  else,  reduces  the 
number  of  these  offenses  to  a  minimum.  The  stories 
that  seep  through  from  France — of  the  bayoneting  of 
prisoners,  for  example,  and  of  German  girls  shrieking 
to  be  killed — make  us  skeptical  of  the  effectiveness  of 
the  restraints  in  the  other  armies.  And  what  will  turn 
the  stomach  of  civilization  when  the  final  inquest  is 
held  are  the  barbarities  of  the  Russian  hordes.  You 
know  that  in  East  Prussia  the  atrocities  of  the  Cos- 
sacks in  1812,  1813  and  1814  are  still  recalled,  a 
century  later.  And  you  know  what  a  saturnalia  of 
outrage,  cruelty  and  torture  Russian  troops  perpetrated 
last  year  in  Bukowina,  Galicia  and  East  Prussia.  The 
official  German  report  of  the  Russian  horrors  has  been 
tacitly  ignored,  although  the  reports  of  the  "atrocities" 
in  Belgium  have  been  given  the  widest  possible  pub- 
licity. 

There  has  grown  up,  in  fact,  a  legend  that  the  Teuton 
in  warfare  is  brutal,  savage  and  ruthless.  This  legend 
has  been  carefully  fostered  in  England — again  to  aid 
the  recruiting  campaign ;  and  it  has  gained  wide-spread 
credence  in  the  United  States.  What  has  lent  color 
to  the  legend  more  than  anything  else  is  the  occasional 

34 


AN   EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

slaughter  of  civilians  and  non-combatants, — as  in  the 
dropping  of  Zeppelin  bombs  on  London  and  other 
English  towns,  the  bombardment  of  the  east  coast  of 
England  by  a  German  fleet,  and  the  sinking  of  passen- 
ger vessels  by  submarines.  You  look  upon  the  killing 
of  these  non-combatants  as  the  regrettable  concomitants 
of  legitimate  military  projects,  but  a  mind  hostile  in 
opinion  to  you  finds  in  them  proof  of  your  personal 
turpitude.  In  the  fog  of  war  we  arrive  at  a  curious 
mental  state.  What  seems  justifiable  when  done  by 
our  side  appears  intolerable  and  execrable  when 
practised  by  the  enemy.  Thus  American  sympathizers 
with  the  Allies  wax  hot  when  German  airmen  shell 
open  English  towns,  but  watch  with  composure  when 
the  aviators  of  the  Allies  drop  bombs  and  kill  women 
and  children  in  the  unfortified  German  towns  of 
Freiburg,  Schlettstadt  or  Karlsruhe.  \Mien  the  French 
use  asphyxiating  gas  they  hear  the  news  with  grim 
satisfaction,  but  when  you  use  gas  they  raise  a  howl 
of  indignation.  When  you  shell  a  cathedral  tower 
they  quote  the  Hague  Conventions,  but  when  the  Eng- 
lish use  dum-dum  bullets  they  shrug  their  shoulders. 
Sympathy  with  a  belligerent  hardens  the  heart.  To 
your  ill-wishers  in  America  German  heartbreak  and 
German  agony  mean  nothing,  and  German  deaths  are 
a  cause  for  rejoicing. 

This  is  the  reason  why  America  has  not  shown 
resentment  at  the  cynical  inhumanity  of  England  and 
France  in  pitting  against  you  uncivilized  yellow,  brown 
and  negroid  troops.     In  the  name  of  civilization  and 

35 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

the  higher  culture  they  have  launched  on  your  sons 
and  husbands  the  Turco,  the  Sikh,  the  Ghoorka,  the 
Pathany — these  savages  who  cut  off  the  heads  of 
prisoners,  make  necklaces  of  eyes  they  have  gouged 
from  the  wounded,  and  thrust  their  knives  upward 
through  the  bowels.  "From  Senegambia,  Morocco, 
the  Soudan,  Afghanistan,  every  wild  band  of  robber 
clans,  come  fighting  men  to  slay  the  compatriots  of 
Kant,  Hegel,  Goethe,  Schiller,  Heine,  Beethoven, 
Wagner,  Mozart,  Diirer,  Helmholtz,  Hertz,  Haeckel, 
and  a  million  others,  perhaps  obscurer,  no  less  noble, 
men  of  the  fatherland  of  music,  of  philosophy,  of 
science,  and  of  medicine,  the  land  where  education  is 
a  reality  and  not  a  farce,  the  land  of  Luther  and 
Melanchthon,  the  land  whose  life-blood  washed  out 
the  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  the  Dark  Ages. 
"The  Huns!" 


Quite  frankly  the  American  press  wants  to  see  you 
beaten  in  this  war,  to  have  "Prussian  militarism"  wiped 
out.  H  you  win,  say  our  sage  students  of  foreign 
affairs,  you  will  override  the  world  like  a  tyrannical 
colossus,  threatening  the  life  of  every  free  people. 
France  and  England  will  be  annihilated.  Who  will  be 
next?  Naturally  the  United  States.  As  our  sapient 
editors  are  fond  of  phrasing  it,  the  United  States 
"cannot  afford"  to  see  the  Allies  lose. 

The  desire  to  see  you  defeated  springs  naturally  out 
of  the  general  feeling  of  antagonism.     Some  explana- 

36 


AN   EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

tion  of  your  supposed  aggression  had  to  be  found. 
How  was  it  that  you,  notoriously  a  peace-loving  peo- 
ple, suddenly  reached  up  and  pulled  down  the  pillars 
of  civilization?  What  was  the  motive?  The  answer 
has  been  militarism — together  with  autocracy,  lust  for 
expansion,  delusion  of  a  world  mission — but  always 
first  and  last,  militarism.  Nietzsche,  Treitschke  and 
Bernhardi  have  been  pictured  as  your  popular  authors 
and  national  guides.  The  Prussian  drill  sergeant  has 
been  depicted  as  your  universal  educator,  who  has 
drilled  your  minds  as  well  as  your  bodies.  The  House 
of  Hohenzollcrn  has  been  held  up  as  a  dynasty  of  war- 
lords, afilicted  with  a  Caesarian  itch  to  rule  the  world. 

In  other  words,  your  defamers  do  their  best  to 
make  of  you  a  bogy.  The  non-combatant  in  modern 
war  loses  all  touch  with  fact  and  comes  to  paint  the 
enemy  as  a  monster  and  a  demon.  No  greater  libel 
ever  has  been  uttered  against  a  nation  than  when  Ger- 
mans are  accused  of  being  a  race  of  militarists.  A 
juster  description  is  that  you  are  the  most  military 
and  the  least  warlike  of  people.  You  had  in  Germany, 
of  course,  as  had  every  other  European  power,  your 
pro-war  party,  and  it  was  an  insistent  and  outspoken 
party,  but  to  picture  it  as  anything  but  a  small  minority 
is  to  travesty  the  truth.  Your  militarists  had  no  more 
popular  support  or  more  effective  grip  on  the  govern- 
ment than  did  the  Imperialists  of  England,  or  the 
Chauvinists  of  France,  or  the  Irridentists  of  Italy; 
the  proof  lies  in  the  event! 

If  you  had  not  maintained  a  powerful  army,  where 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

would  you  be  now?  Here  is  Germany,  completely 
ringed  with  hate-stung  foes,  battling  against  odds  such 
as  no  other  nation  ever  has  had  to  face,  outnumbered 
more  than  two  to  one — almost  three  to  one — in  men, 
resources  and  wealth,  fighting  to  preserve  her  existence 
and  even  her  right  to  remain  a  free  and  united  people ; 
yet  to  hear  Englishmen  and  Americans  talk  one  would 
imagine  that  the  Allies,  rather  than  Germany,  were 
the  stag  at  bay !  Of  late  it  has  become  the  fashion  in 
our  journals  to  cite  your  "preparedness"  as  a  convinc- 
ing proof  of  a  German  conspiracy  against  the  peace 
of  the  world.  I  quote  a  few  phrases  from  a  bitter  and 
rhetorical  article^  in  a  recent  issue  of  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post :  "Germany  .  .  .  has  hurled  calamity  on 
a  continent.  She  has  struck  to  pieces  a  Europe  whose 
very  unpreparedness  answers  her  ridiculous  falsehood 
that  she  was  attacked  first;"  "Prussia's  long-prepared 
and  malignant  assault  .  .  .  the  deadliest  assault  ever 
made  on  Democracy;"  "Her  spring  at  the  throat  of 
an  unsuspecting,  unprepared  world."  There  you  have 
it !  Germany  was  prepared  to  meet  a  dangerous  attack 
(which  actually  was  made),  therefore  she  must  have 
invited  the  attack,  nay,  perpetrated  it.  And  such  non- 
sense passes  for  logic!  At  the  war's  beginning  your 
American  enemies  predicted  that  you  soon  would  be 
crushed  and  taught  the  folly  of  challenging  a  fore- 
warned world ;  now  that  you  are  winning,  your 
victories  are  cited  to  show  how  innocent  must  have 
been  the  rest  of  the  world  so  to  have  been  caught 

'"The  Pentecost  of  Calamity"  by   Owen  Wister. 

38 


AX    EXPLANATION  TO  GERMANY 

napping.  Either  way  you  are  blamed.  When  you 
stand  off  a  world  and  deal  your  enemies  staggering 
blows,  you  are  given  no  credit  for  being  better  gen- 
eralled,  for  having  superior  physical  stamina,  for  meet- 
ing with  greater  ability  the  complex  industrial  and 
technical  problems  of  modern  war,  or  for  your  intenser 
moral  earnestness, — this  passion  of  conviction  which 
enables  you  to  unlock  such  marvelous  reserves  of 
energy. 

No,  the  explanation  is  always  "preparedness."  Yet 
in  all  save  the  intangible  racial  factors  your  opponents 
were  as  well  prepared  as  yourselves.  The  combined 
standing  armies  of  Russia  and  France  before  the  war 
numbered  2,010,000  soldiers  as  against  your  870,000, 
and  the  total  of  their  drilled  men  was  9,500,000  as 
against  your  5,500,000.  Austria  and  Turkey  were  more 
than  offset  by  Great  Britain,  Scrvia,  Portugal,  Italy 
and  Japan.  On  the  sea  the  preparedness  of  the  Allies 
exceeded  yours  in  the  proportion  of  four  to  one.  The 
total  output  of  their  arms  works  and  munitions  facto- 
ries was  greater  than  yours  in  the  same  ratio  as  their 
armies,  and  Schneider-Creusot  rivaled  Krupp.  The 
boasts  of  your  enemies  last  summer,  telling  what  they 
would  do  to  you,  shows  how  highly  they  thought  of 
their  armaments.  Is  it  your  reproach  or  theirs  that 
those  boasts  proved  somewhat  hollow  ?  Why  not 
rather  give  you  decent  credit  for  the  amazing,  almost 
incredible,  stand  you  are  making? 

The  overworked  assertion  that  civilization  will  suffer 
if  you  win  is  not  based  on  any  impartial  analysis  of 

39 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

German  character  or  purposes,  or  upon  a  reasoned 
forecast  of  historical  probabiHties.  It  is  sheer  malice. 
Probably  there  is  no  settlement  of  this  conflict  which 
can  be  entirely  satisfactory.  For  myself  I  prefer  to 
see  you  win,  and  win  decisively.  If  Germany  is  de- 
stroyed, or  even  greatly  hampered  in  its  normal  de- 
velopment, one  of  the  world's  best  hopes  will  be  ex- 
tinguished. But  if  Germany  is  victorious,  the  inter- 
national situation  may  be  much  improved.  The  world 
will  be  spared  an  increase  in  Russia's  power,  and  the 
forcible  Russification  of  more  victim  peoples.  We 
shall  avoid  a  dangerous  aggrandizement  in  the  position 
of  Japan.  A  German  victory  may  liberalize  the 
electoral  system  of  Prussia,*  but  nothing  will  liberalize 
Russia  except  a  crushing  defeat  and  the  withdrawal 
of  English  and  French  loans  to  the  bureaucracy. 
France  will  not  be  annihilated,  any  more  than  she  was 
after  1870,  though  she  may  be  forced  to  part  with  a 
section  of  her  colonial  empire.  England  will  not  be 
wiped  out,  but  she  may  be  forced  to  forego  the 
arrogant  assumption  that  the  sea  is  British  property. 
The  United  States  can  view  with  composure  any 
changes  in  titles  to  colonies  in  Africa  or  the  Near  East. 
You  will  never  cross  our  path.  For  one  thing  you  will 
be  too  busy  elsewhere! 

Alost  Americans,  of  course,  do  not  share  this  view; 
nothing  would  please  them  better  than  to  see  Germany 
brought  to  her  knees.    It  is  this  popular  desire  to  see 

*Professor  Henry  C.  Emery,  "German  Economics  and  the  War,"  Yale 
Review,  January,  1915. 

40 


AN    EXPLANATION    TO    GERMANY 

you  beaten  which  so  complicates  the  question  of  our 
trade  in  war  munitions.  That  question  has  not  and 
cannot  be  argued  on  its  merits.  However  neutral  the 
United  States  has  been  in  its  official  attitude,  it  is  not 
neutral  in  sentiment.  Americans  are  glad  to  supply 
your  enemies  with  arms,  because  in  this  way  they 
can  help  avenge  the  "rape  of  Belgium"  and  aid  in 
punishing  the  "disturber  of  the  world's  peace."  Tech- 
nically, of  course,  our  neutrality  is  not  violated,  for 
we  have  the  legal  right,  by  historical  usage  and  by 
article  7,  Convention  XIII  of  the  1907  Hague  Confer- 
ence, to  sell  arms  anywhere  in  the  world.  Neither,  on 
the  other  hand,  would  our  neutrality  be  violated  by 
placing  a  complete  embargo  on  the  ships  carrying 
munitions.  To  right-thinking  men  and  women  this 
whole  business  of  dealing  in  instruments  of  destruc- 
tion for  profit  appears  disgusting  and  abhorrent.  How- 
ever, the  crux  of  the  question  is  neither  neutrality  or 
ethics.  While  the  Allies  control  the  seas  export  of 
arms  aids  them,  embargo  on  arms  aids  you.  Conse- 
quently outside  of  German-Americans,  there  is  little 
demand  that  Congress  suppress  this  new  and  monstrous 
billion-dollar  industry. 

My  German  friends,  there  is  one  last  word  I  would 
address  to  you,  and  this  most  earnestly  of  all.  Do  not 
allow  your  bitterness  against  the  United  States  to  in- 
crease. Do  not  regard  this  country  as  your  confirmed 
enemy,  but  as  a  potential  friend.  Our  nation  is  much 
more  divided  in  its  sympathy  than  it  appears  to  be. 
There  are  over   eight  million   German-Americans   in 

41 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

America, — immigrants  or  offspring  of  immigrants. 
There  are  nearly  three  milHons  from  Austria-Hungary. 
There  are  four  and  a  half  millions  from  Ireland,  of 
whom  a  large  proportion  take  a  pro-German  attitude. 
Besides  these  millions  there  are  a  vast  number  of  men 
and  women  of  older  American  stock  who  see  the 
justice  of  your  struggle,  or  at  least  are  lenient  in  their 
judgment.  The  laboring  men,  the  common  people 
everywhere,  do  not  share  the  rabid  intolerance  of  our 
pseudo-intellectuals.  The  anti-German  attitude  of  our 
press  gives  a  false  surface  of  unanimity  to  American 
opinion.  We  do  not  know,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  where 
we  should  stand  if  your  side  had  adequate  and  fair 
representation  in  the  journals  of  public  discussion. 
But  be  assured  of  this:  what  is  now  called  "the  Amer- 
ican attitude"  toward  Germany  will  not  endure  for- 
ever. It  is,  as  I  have  explained  to  you,  based  in  large 
part  on  errors  in  the  interpretation  of  facts.  If  that  is 
so,  some  day  these  misinterpretations  will  be  refuted 
and  swept  away.  At  bottom  America  is  fair-minded. 
And  you  have  in  the  United  States  loyal  friends,  whose 
eyes  refuse  to  be  blinded  by  calumny,  who,  not  una- 
ware of  your  faults,  love  you  for  your  lofty  virtues, 
who  will  fight  for  you  against  a  world  of  falsehoods, 
until  the  truth  prevails.    Dem  gliicklichen  Tag! 


42 


A  QUESTION  FOR  ENGLAND 

WHY  are  you  in  this  war? 
You  are  the  English ;  you  are  now,  and  will 
continue  to  be,  a  great  people.  You  are  at  present 
united,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  ineffective  intel- 
lectuals, in  a  resolve  to  "crush"  Germany,  to  beat  her 
to  her  knees,  to  punish  her.  Hate,  when  it  permeates 
a  whole  people,  becomes  a  terrible  political  fact.  Yet 
there  is  no  reason  why  neutrals  should  sanction  and 
condone  British  hate  any  more  than  German  hate,  or 
Mohammedan  hate.  Hate  always  blights,  never 
creates,  and  should  hate  rule  the  peace  and  the  set- 
tlement, whichever  side  wins  in  the  field,  we  shall 
have  a  worse  Europe  than  before.  It  is  not,  there- 
fore, to  your  half-crazed  wartime  mood  that  I  appeal, 
but  to  whatever  measure  of  cool  reason  remains  among 
you.  In  every  crisis  a  few  Englishmen  keep  their 
heads ;  that  is  one  of  the  sources  of  British  strength. 
Let  me  ask  them,  without  rancor,  one  question. 

What  are  you  fighting  for? 

You  may  say  that  the  answer  is  simple :  you  are 
fighting  for  democracy,  for  liberty,  for  civilization, 
for  humanity.  Permit  me  to  point  out  that  these  vague 
j)hrases  in  themselves  mean  exactly  nothing.  Each  of 
the  belligerents  believes  it  is  fighting  for  "civilization." 

43 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

The  idealism  of  the  German  people  is  as  sincere,  and 
their  earnestness  as  intense,  to  say  the  least,  as  your 
own.  High-sounding  pretensions  must  be  translated 
into  concrete  terms  to  gain  significance. 

An  explanation  would  come  from  you  in  good  grace, 
for  on  the  face  of  it  your  position  in  the' war  is  peculiar. 
You  are  fighting  on  the  side  of  Russia,  a  despotic  and 
half-Asiatic  power  which  has  little  in  common  with 
Western  civilization,  and  whose  interests  are  in  no  way 
identical  with  those  of  the  British  Empire,  and  you 
are  fighting  against  Germany,  a  people  of  the  same 
stock  as  yourselves,  with  the  same  general  social  pur- 
poses, whom  the  deeper  racial  and  cultural  forces 
would  seem  to  mark  as  your  natural  ally.  Indeed, 
your  choice  of  sides  in  this  struggle  is  a  great  histori- 
cal anomaly,  second  only  to  the  anomaly  of  the  war 
itself.  How  did  that  alignment  come  about?  Of 
course  there  are  reasons.  But  are  the  reasons  those 
which  have  been  alleged  by  your  statesmen  and 
publicists?  Behind  this  question  lies  another:  What 
are  you  striving  to  accomplish  in  this  conflict?  What 
purposes  do  you  hope  to  achieve  by  that  victory  of 
which  you  are  still  so  confident? 

This  is  not  an  academic  discussion.  These  are  politi- 
cal questions  of  the  greatest  urgency,  both  for  English- 
men and,  indirectly,  for  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
It  is  of  the  first  importance  that  we  think  rightly  on 
these  issues,  not  merely  that  we  may  save  our  own 
souls  by  finding  the  truth,  but  that,  having  embraced 
the  truth,  we  may  save  Europe  and  the  world. 

44 


A  QUESTION   FOR  ENGLAND 
II 

Are  you  fighting  for  iielgium? 

You  must  admit  that  for  many  of  the  British  public 
Belgium  was  England's  casus  belli.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  of  your  best  young  men  have  enlisted  in 
the  service  of  the  King,  believing  that  they  are  taking 
up  arms  to  defend  a  little  country  against  a  brutal 
aggression.  From  your  press  and  platform  have  come 
the  strongest  assertions  that  England  is  fighting  a 
righteous  war  to  vindicate  the  sanctity  of  treaties  and 
uphold  the  rights  of  small  nations.  No  consideration 
has  won  you  sympathy  in  neutral  countries  more 
readily  than  this  plea. 

Do  you  still  insist  on  the  pose  of  the  knightly 
rescuer?  Let  me  call  your  attention  to  two  or  three 
incontrovertible  aspects  of  your  relation  to  Belgium. 

1.  Sir  Edward  Grey  had,  in  secret  commitments, 
unconditionally  pledged  the  naval  and  military  forces 
of  the  Empire  to  France  in  case  of  a  European  war. 
These  secret  agreements,  contracted  as  far  back  as 
1906  and  frequently  renewed,  known  to  only  a  few 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  were  not  announced  to  Parlia- 
ment and  the  British  nation  until  August  3,  1914,  when 
the  armies  of  the  Continent  were  already  on  the  march. 
They  would  have  thrown  you  into  war  in  any  case, 
Belgium  or  no  Belgium.  It  is  said  on  good  authority 
that  Sir  Edward  Grey  planned,  in  event  of  repudiation 
by  his  own  Cabinet,  to  form  a  Coalition  Cabinet  in 
August,  1914 — as  was  done  months  later — and  proceed 
to  carry  out  his  "obligations  of  honor."     That  these 

45 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

agreements  were  contracted  in  secret,  without  the 
knowledge  of  the  British  people,  does  not  alter  the 
fact  that  they  were  a  binding  action  of  the  British 
government. 

2.  Germany  made  a  definite  bid  for  your  neutrality 
on  the  score  of  Belgian  integrity.  If  your  government 
had  been  actuated  by  any  idealistic  concern  for  small 
nationalities  why  did  it  not  intervene  to  preserve 
Belgium  when  it  could?  Sir  Edward  Grey  was  asked 
point  blank  by  Ambassador  Lichnowsky  whether  he 
would  keep  Britain  out  of  the  war  if  Belgian  neutrality 
were  respected  (celebrated  dispatch  No.  123,  British 
White  Paper).  Your  Foreign  Secretary  answered, 
no,  his  hands  must  be  free, — meaning,  of  course,  that 
his  hands  already  were  tied.  When  war  came.  Great 
Britain's  action  was  mortgaged.  "If  France  became 
involved  we  should  be  drawn  in"  (No.  111).  England 
might  have,  indeed  would  have,  saved  Belgium  had 
Belgian  welfare  been  a  primary  object  of  British 
statesmanship ;  but  it  was  not. 

3.  Belgium  was  used  shamelessly  as  a  pawn  in  the 
great  game  between  the  Triple  Alliance  and  the  Triple 
Entente.  Your  little  neighbor,  by  the  accident  of  its 
position,  is  of  the  greatest  strategic  importance,  either 
for  an  offensive  against  France  or  an  ofifensive  against 
Germany.  Your  Foreign  Office  urged  the  Belgians  to 
"maintain  to  the  utmost  of  their  power  their  neutral- 
ity" (White  Paper  No.  115).  France  pressed  armed 
aid  on  Belgium  before  its  course  was  announced. 
British   and   French    strategists    for   years   had   been 

46 


A  QUESTION  FOR  ENGLAND 

hatching  secret  mihtary  plans  with  the  Belgian  Gen- 
eral Staff.  These  plans  did  not,  it  is  true,  foreshadow 
direct  aggression  on  Belgium,  but  surely  they  indicated 
the  most  cynical  willingness  to  use  the  Belgian  army 
as  a  first  line  of  defense  for  the  Entente.  When  war 
broke  out  the  "plucky  Belgians"  rendered  you  a  most 
valuable  service  in  delaying  the  march  of  the  Teutonic 
hosts.  What,  I  ask  you  in  all  frankness,  did  you  do 
for  Belgium  ?  Belgium  was  desolated  ;  she  was  caught 
and  ground  to  pieces  between  the  huge  rival  alliances 
of  Europe.  The  action  of  your  government,  playing 
the  game  of  the  balance  of  power,  amounted  to  nothing 
less  than  a  ghastly  betrayal  of  Belgian  interests. 

The  above  observations,  I  submit,  are  based  on 
facts ;  I  do  not  admit  that  they  are  disputable.  I  give 
them  thus  briefly  because  they  have  been  emphasized 
already  by  many  British  writers.  I  need  mention  only 
the  names  of  Dr.  F.  C.  Conybeare,^  E.  D.  Morel,^ 
H.  N.  Brailsford,^  Ramsay  Macdonald,^  and  Bernard 
Shaw,^  Even  the  London  Times,  in  a  leader  of  March 
12,  1915,  repudiated  chivalry  for  Belgium:  "Herr  von 
Bethmann-Hollweg  is  quite  right.  Even  had  Germany 
not  invaded  Belgium,  honor  and  interest  would  have 
united  us  with  France." 

Yet  I  know  what  reply  you,  the  better  class  of 
Englishmen,  would  give  to  the  foregoing.    You  would 

'Conybeare,  letter  in   f'ital  Issue. 
'Morel,   Letter   to   Birkenhead    Liberal   Association. 
'Brailsford,  Belgium  and  "The  Scral>  of  Paper." 
*Macdonald,   Statement  in   the  Labor   Leader. 
°Shaw,   Common  Sense  About  the   War. 

A7 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

say:  "This  indictment  of  the  past  is  all  very  well.  I 
dare  say  our  statesmen  juggled  with  Belgium,  and  I 
have  never  been  a  partisan  of  secret  diplomacy.  That 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  forsake  Belgium  now. 
The  bald  fact  remains  that  she  has  been  trampled  under 
foot  by  Germany,  that  she  is  now  invaded  and  held  in 
subjection.  It  is  England's  duty  to  fight  on  until  the 
last  invader  is  cleared  from  Belgian  soil." 

I  give  you  full  credit  for  honesty  in  this  sentiment. 
Your  aim  is  generous;  but  you  have  chosen  futile 
means.  You  wish  to  avenge  Belgium  by  force  of  arms. 
It  cannot  be  done. 

Suppose  you  are  successful ;  that  you  drive  back 
the  Germans,  yard  by  yard,  to  their  own  territory. 
What  does  that  mean  for  Belgium?  Merely  a  second 
devastation  more  terrible  than  the  first.  By  again 
making  Belgium  the  world's  battlefield,  you  will  scorch 
her  bare.  There  is  a  better  way  out.  Why  should 
Germany  care  to  retain  Belgian  territory?  Only  as  a 
weapon  against  you.  "Antwerp  is  a  pistol  pointed  at 
the  heart  of  England."  Strategically  Belgium  has 
value ;  politically  and  financially  she  would  be  a  liabil- 
ity. As  soon  as  you  convince  the  Germans  that  Eng- 
land is  not  perpetrating  a  huge  aggression  to  destroy 
her,  Belgium  will  be  evacuated  without  cost  to  the 
Belgians;  not  before.  I  agree  that  no  settlement  of 
this  conflict  can  be  satisfactory  which  does  not  restore 
Belgium's  independence  and  make  her  such  measure 
of  reparation  as  may  be  possible.  But  in  that  reparation 
you  have  a  share  to  pay  as  well  as  Germany. 

48 


A  QUESTION   FOR  ENGLAND 

Let  US,  in  the  name  of  decency,  drop  this  twaddle 
about  the  rights  of  small  nationalities.  Consider  your 
allies.  You  stood  calmly  aside  when  Russia  throttled 
Finland,  and  when  she  crushed  Persian  independence 
with  atrocities  more  gruesome  than  the  alleged  German 
atrocities.  You  applauded  Japan  in  violating  China's 
neutrality  to  march  on  Kiao  Chou.  Your  Foreign 
Office  actively  supported  France  when  she  tore  up  the 
public  law  of  Europe  as  embodied  in  the  Act  of 
Algeciras  and  subjected  Morocco  to  military  terrorism 
and  financial  strangulation.  Do  you  insist  on  one 
moral  code  for  your  enemies  and  approve  an  opposite 
for  your  friends?  Your  own  record  in  Ireland  should 
close  your  lips  against  pious  platitudes  about  small 
nations.  You  did  not  enter  this  war  to  protect  Bel- 
gium. You  will  never  render  her  effective  service 
until  you  are  prepared  to  bargain  concessions  or 
colonies  to  secure  her  interests.  That,  apparently,  you 
are  not  ready  to  do. 

What  are  you  fighting  for?    Not  Belgium! 

Ill 

Possibly  you  are  in  this  war  to  safeguard  France. 
La  Belle  France!  You  could  not  bear  to  see  your 
closest  friend  crushed  to  earth.  If  that  is  your  motive 
it  is  a  laudable  one.  The  whole  world  holds  France 
precious. 

You  will  admit,  however,  that  this  deep  affection  is 
rather  a  sudden  attachment.  For  centuries  the  French 
and  British  peoples  fought  and  snarled  at  one  another. 

49 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

You  hated  France  when  France  was  strong.  Even 
within  the  last  quarter  century  there  were  three  occa- 
sions when  you  stood  on  the  brink  of  war  with  her, — 
over  Siam,  West  Africa,  and  the  Nile  Valley 
(Fashoda).  But  in  1904  your  Foreign  Office  reached 
a  general  agreement  with  France  on  all  outstanding 
disputes.  In  1906  it  came  to  an  understanding  with 
Russia,  and  so  the  Entente  Cordiale  was  formed.  From 
that  day  on  the  peace  of  Europe  was  never  safe.  While 
the  Triple  Alliance  was  the  most  powerful  military 
force  in  Europe  the  dogs  were  chained,  but  when  a 
stronger  combination  (presumably)  arose,  the  politics 
of  Europe  steadily  underwent  a  sinister  transforma- 
tion.    Let  us  see  what  happened. 

The  British  Foreign  Office  definitely  abandoned 
Salisbury's  policy  of  a  Concert  for  a  system  of  rival 
military  groups.  The  Entente  did  not  confine  itself 
to  a  defensive  league  against  a  possible  attack,  but 
began  openly  or  clandestinely  to  balk  and  bully  and 
injure  its  rivals  in  time  of  peace.  Sir  Edward  Grey 
at  once  signed  a  general  Anglo-French  declaration 
regarding  Egypt  and  Morocco,  in  which  the  French 
government  averred  that  it  had  no  intention  "of  altering 
the  political  status  of  Morocco."  This  was  followed 
by  the  publication  of  a  Franco-Spanish  declaration  of 
similar  tenor.  At  the  same  time  that  these  public 
declarations  of  good  faith  appeared  Sir  Edward  Grey 
entered  into  secret  agreements  with  France  and  Spain 
which  provided  for  the  partition  of  Morocco  between 
tlie  two  latter  countries  and  rendered  the  integrity  of 

50 


A  QUKSTIOX    FOR   KNCLAND 

the  Moorish  kingdom  a  sham."  Germany  had  vast 
economic  interests  in  Morocco.  What  became  of 
them?  They  were  wrested  from  her.  Germany  was 
robbed,  underhandedly,  and  furthermore  was  humili- 
ated, insulted,  slapped  in  the  face.  Morocco,  whose 
independence  was  guaranteed  not  only  by  the  public 
declarations  of  1904,  but  also  by  the  international  Act 
of  Algeciras  of  1906,  signed  by  all  the  powers,  was 
ruthlessly  reduced  to  a  French  dependency.  Morocco 
in  time  of  "peace"  was  treated  worse  than  Belgium  in 
time  of  war. 

To  all  this  Germany  did  not  submit  without  a  pro- 
test. She  intervened  twice,  once  at  Tangier  in  the 
person  of  the  Emperor,  and  again  at  Agidir  with  the 
Panther.  In  these  interventions  she  was  entirely 
within  her  rights,  and  in  accord  with  what  Mr.  Morel 
calls  "the  fundamental  legality  of  her  attitude."  And 
both  times  Europe  nearly  plunged  into  war  because 
Britain  interfered  to  back  up  France  in  an  aggression 
where  she  was  morally  and  legally  wrong.  In  both 
instances,  mind  you,  your  Foreign  Office  did  not  inter- 
fere with  merely  diplomatic  weapons,  but  with  the 
threat  of  the  whole  militarv  and  naval  forces  of  Great 


•The  Moroccan  intrigue  served  more  than  anything  else  to  embitter 
Anglo-German  relations,  and  helped  to  usher  in  the  present  war.  The 
autiiority  for  the  statements  in  the  text  is  to  be  found  in  Morocco  in 
Diplomacy  by  E.  D.  Morel,  first  published  in  London  in  1912,  and 
reissued  as  Ten  Years  of  Secret  Diplomacy  in  1915.  Mr.  Morel  pre- 
sents the  history  of  the  affair  with  such  a  wealth  of  detailed  proof,  with 
such  evident  impartiality  and  with  so  genuine  a  concern  for  the  best 
interests  of  England  and  of  Europe  that  I  venture  to  state  no  fair- 
minded   man  can  read  the  book  unconvinced. 

51 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

Britain, — offered,  in  the  event  of  a  Franco-German 
rupture,  to  mobilize  the  fleet,  seize  the  Kiel  canal  and 
land  100,000  men  in  Schleswig-Holstein.  These  facts 
were  laid  bare  in  the  Lausanne  disclosures  of  1905 
and  the  Faber  revelations  of  1911.  One  immediate 
effect  was  to  leave  the  whole  German  nation  rocking 
and  seething  with  indignation,  and  to  convince  Ger- 
many that  England  would  precipitate  a  European  war 
on  the  first  pretext. 

In  the  end  Germany  lost  all  of  her  interests  in 
Morocco,  though  a  slice  of  land  in  the  interior  of  the 
French  Congo  was  thrown  to  her  as  a  sop.  The  secret 
clauses  of  the  1904  Declarations  finally  were  revealed 
in  Le  Temps  and  Le  Matin,  November,  1911.  But 
Germany  had  wind  of  them  as  early  as  October,  1904. 
Says  Mr.  Morel  (remember  that  he  wrote  in  1912)  : 
"Thenceforth  dated  the  situation  which  for  more  than 
seven  years  has  poisoned  the  whole  European  atmos- 
phere, embroiled  British,  French,  German,  and  Spanish 
relations,  and  placed  an  enormous  and  constantly  grow- 
ing burden  of  added  expenditure  upon  the  peoples  of 
those  countries.  Thenceforth  dated  the  situation  which 
Sir  Edward  Grey,  instead  of  seeking  to  improve  by 
orienting  his  policy  after  Algeciras  in  a  more  friendly 
spirit  toward  Germany — retaining  what  was  good  but 
rejecting  what  was  bad  in  the  policy  of  his  predeces- 
sor— has  aggravated  and  worsened  to  such  a  degree 
that  only  yesterday  we  escaped  a  general  conflagration. 
Veritably  the  process  of  being  a  party  to  the  stealing 
of  another  man's  land  brings  with  it  its  own  Nemesis. 

52 


A  QUESTION  FOR  ENGLAND 

Unfortunately  it  is  the  people  in  whose  name,  but 
without  whose  sanction,  these  things  are  done,  who 
have  to  pay."  And  again:  "I  understand  that  in  the 
current  jargon  of  diplomacy  that  sort  of  thing  is  called 
'high  politics.'  The  plain  man  may  be  permitted  to 
dub  it  by  one  word  only — dishonesty." 

Yes,  it  was  dishonest  diplomacy,  just  as  it  was  dis- 
honest statesmanship  in  1914  to  deny  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  the  country  was  pledged  to  France, 
and  then  to  reveal,  after  war  actually  had  broken  out, 
secret  obligations  of  honor.  England's  naval  and  mili- 
tary power  has  been  mortgaged  to  France  in  case  of  a 
war  with  Germany  for  the  last  ten  years,  uncon- 
ditionally, and  without  reference,  apparently,  to  the 
nature  of  the  quarrel  and  the  crisis.  It  was  so  in 
1905,  it  was  so  in  1911,  and  it  was  so  in  August,  1914. 
The  British  Foreign  Office  had  become  saturated  with 
anti-German  feeling,  with  suspicion  and  unfairness. 
This  anti-German  cabal,  typified  by  such  men  as 
Tyrrell,  Nicholson  and  Bertie,  did  all  it  could  to  stul- 
tify international  good-will,  and,  through  the  press,  to 
prejudice  and  emlMtter  public  opinion.  Sir  Edward 
Grey  worked  hand  and  glove  with  this  cabal,  although 
his  anti-Germanism  seems  to  have  been  diluted  with 
a  pale  pacifism  which  made  him  shudder,  at  the  last 
moment,  on  the  edge  of  that  catastrophe  he  had  done 
so  much  to  make  inevitable.  The  culpability  of 
Britain  is  no  less  because  these  machinations  were  car- 
ried on  behind  the  scenes  and  without  the  overt  sanc- 
tion  of   the   British   people.      In    foreign   affairs   the 

53 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

Foreign  Office  was  Britain,  And  when  the  great  test 
came  it  was  able  to  carry  the  country  into  war. 

For  France,  then,  are  you  fighting?  For  the  France 
of  gaiety,  of  beauty,  of  philosophy?  What  did  your 
diplomatic  intriguers  care  for  the  ideal  France  ?  They 
were  playing  a  high  and  baleful  game,  the  game  of 
the  Balance  of  Power,  in  which  Germany  was  to  be 
outmatched,  the  game  of  the  ring-fence.  England's 
creation  of  the  Entente,  or  rather  the  way  she  manipu- 
lated her  influence  after  it  was  accomplished,  had  an 
evil  influence  on  the  politics  of  both  her  allies.  In 
Russia  the  loans  of  British  gold  strengthened  a  weak- 
ening bureaucracy ;  the  decline  of  the  Duma  dates 
from  that  sinister  aid.'^  In  France  it  caused  the  fires 
of  La  Revanche  to  burn  brighter.  It  gave  political 
power  to  the  French  Colonial  Party  and  threw  the 
republic  into  the  hands  of  adventurers.  It  thwarted 
every  movement  toward  a  Franco-German  rapproche- 
ment, inspiring,  for  example,  those  influences  which 
brought  about  the  overthrow  of  Caillaux.  Was  ever 
game  more  stupid,  or  in  the  end  more  disastrous?  As 
it  was  diplomacy  without  honesty,  so  it  was  statesman- 
ship without  enlightenment.  What  price  Britain  pays 
we  already  begin  to  see.  It  served  directly  and  need- 
lessly to  undermine  what  is  one  of  the  greatest  interests 
of  true  statesmanship,  the  peace  of  the  world. 

And  mark  you!  This  France  to  which  you  so  ef- 
fectively allied  yourself  was  bound  by  the  strongest 

'See    Persia,    Finland,    and    our    Russian    Alliance,    pamphlet    of    the 
Independent  Labor  Party. 

54 


A  yUKSTKJX   I'UH  ENGLAND 

of  agreements  to  Russia.  Her  war  policy  was  part 
and  parcel  of  Russia's  policy.  Why  is  France  now 
at  war?  Is  it  because  she  was  wantonly  invaded  by 
Germany,  or  because  she  is  fulfilling  her  pledges  to 
Russia?  Let  there  be  no  mistake  in  this  matter. 
France  came  into  the  struggle  automatically  as  Rus- 
sia's ally.  Though  there  was  some  silly  pose  at  the 
beginning — what  Americans  would  call  "a  grandstand 
play" — about  withdrawing  ten  kilometers  behind  the 
frontier,  there  never  was  any  doubt  as  to  France's 
action.  "France  is  resolved  to  fulfil  all  the  obligations 
of  her  alliance."^  Yet  this  quarrel  was  at  first  a  Rus- 
sian affair.  It  was  a  dispute  over  the  Balkans  between 
Servia  and  Russia  on  one  side  and  Austria  and  Ger- 
many on  the  other.  Let  me  quote  another  English- 
man. G.  Lowes  Dickinson  says:^  "So  far  as  Russia 
is  concerned,  I  believe  Germany  to  be  on  the  defensive." 
Well,  if  that  is  so,  then  Germany  is  on  the  defensive 
against  the  world.  The  nations  had  strung  themselves 
on  a  single  cord,  the  handle  to  which  was  the  Franco- 
Russian  alliance.  When  Russia  jerked  that  handle, 
the  nations  were  all  pulled  in, — France,  Great  Britain, 
Belgium.  France  was  a  link;  you  are  really  the  ally 
of  Russia. 

To  be  the  ally  of  unregenerate,  medieval  Russia  is 
a  national  infamy.    But  you  cannot  see  that. 

The  attitude  of  cultivated  Englishmen  toward  Rus- 

•Statement   of   Viviani   to   the   French   embassadors  at    St.    Petersburg 
and  London,  July  30.   1914.     French  Yellow   Book,  No.    101. 
*The  IVar  and  the  IVay  Out,  p.   16. 

55 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

sia  illustrates  how  the  partisanship  of  war  warps  the 
mind.  At  one  time  you  understood  the  real  Russia 
and  dreaded  and  abhorred  that  reign  of  the  secret 
police  called  its  government.  But  an  ally  can  do  no 
wrong.  So  far  as  possible  Englishmen  now  mentally 
turn  their  backs  on  Russia,  and  whenever  they  are 
forced  to  look  at  her  they  put  on  rose-colored  spectacles 
lest  they  see  the  truth.  Arnold  Bennett,  in  one  of  the 
most  unsportsmanlike  defenses^"  of  British  diplomacy 
which  has  been  published,  declares  that  so  far  as  Eng- 
land is  concerned,  Russia  is  an  accident.  An  accident! 
An  accident  composed  of  170,000,000  people  which  in- 
creases at  the  rate  of  3,000,000  a  year,  with  all  those 
millions  conscripted  and  marshalled  by  the  most  soul- 
less, oppressive,  unscrupulous  autocracy  in  the  world! 
For  the  Germans  this  vast  Tatar  nation  is  no  accident. 
"We  in  the  West,  as  Marcel  Sembat  pointed  out  some 
months  before  he  entered  the  French  Cabinet,  have 
never  quite  realized  how  Germans  regard  Russia.  For 
us  she  is  a  safely  distant  power.  We  can  afford  to 
think  of  her  novels  and  her  music.  W^e  can  personify 
her  as  a  nation  which  produced  Tolstoy  and  Kropot- 
kin.^^  We  know  her  through  her  exiles.  For  the  Ger- 
mans she  is  the  semi-barbarous  neighbor  across  the 
frontier,  with  the  population  which  is  eighty  per  cent 
illiterate,  and  those  Cossacks  whose  name  still  recalls 
the  devastations  of  the  Seven  Years  War."^^    Yet  the 

'iRropotkin  by  all  means.     See  his  The  Terror  in  Russia,   1909. 
"H.  N.   Brailsford  in   The  New  Republic,  July  24,   1915. 

56 


A  QUESTION   FOR  ENGLAND 

truth  about  Russia  is  not  hard  to  ascertain.  Since  the 
war  started  all  the  forces  of  reaction  have  been 
strengthened.  The  labor  leaders,  every  liberal  element, 
have  been  terrorized ;  the  Jews,  already  ground  under 
heel,  have  been  subjected  to  new  and  horrible  indigni- 
ties ;  all  constitutional  rights  in  Finland  have  been 
stamped  out.  The  Duma  has  been  prorogued  and 
silenced.  Russia  uses  the  support  of  her  liberal  allies 
to  slump  further  back  into  despotism.  This  war  is 
the  great  catastrophe ;  it  overshadows  all  else.  But  the 
next  greatest  crime  against  civilization  is  the  fact  that 
the  three  greatest  cultural  nations  of  the  West,  Eng- 
land, Germany  and  France,  instead  of  standing 
shoulder  to  shoulder  against  the  Asiatic  powers,  are 
tearing  at  each  other's  vitals,  with  two  of  the  three 
arrayed  against  the  third  at  the  behest  and  in  the 
interest  of  this  unspeakable  bureaucracy.  Who  is  re- 
sponsible for  this  irrational,  this  unholy  alliance?  I 
leave  the  answer  to  you. 

IV 

"But  away  with  all  this  talk  of  policies  and  politics," 
you  cry.  "Let  us  get  down  to  the  fundamental  issue, 
Germany  herself.  Why  are  we  at  war?  Look  at  our 
foe  for  your  answer!  We  could  not  abide  a  world 
forever  overawed  by  this  menace  of  Prussianism! 
These  barbarians !  These  veritable  Huns !  This  mod- 
ern Attila!  This  perverted  nation  of  militarists!  This 
incarnate  blood-lust  and  egotism !    This — " 

Save  your  vocabulary.     We  have  heard  more  than 

57 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

enough  of  vituperation  within  the  past  year.  I  know 
that  you,  the  better  class  of  EngHshmen — and  that  is 
the  only  sort  I  am  addressing — have  had  no  part  in 
the  shameless  and  cowardly  abuse  of  Germans  which 
has  filled  your  press  during  the  war  period.  Still  it  is 
true,  I  believe,  that  your  conception  of  Germany  is 
compounded  in  part  of  fictions.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise?  For  a  decade  certain  sections  of  British 
opinion  have  made  it  their  interest  to  slander  and  mis- 
represent your  great  Teutonic  neighbor.  Within  the 
last  months  these  defamers  have  used  their  blackest 
colors;  they  do  not  picture  a  people  at  all,  but  a 
grotesque  caricature  of  something  which  started  out 
to  be  superhuman  and  ended  in  being  inhuman.  Out 
of  the  fog  of  war  they  have  fashioned  a  bogy,  a  mon- 
ster which  bears  no  more  resemblance  to  the  Germany 
across  the  North  Sea  than  does  an  image  of  Moloch 
to  a  man.  All  Englishmen  appear  to  share,  in  greater 
or  less  degree,  this  bogy-belief. 

To  refute  each  canard,  to  strip  bare  and  expose  each 
fiction,  would  be  impossible.  But  some  categorical 
statements  should  be  made.  Germans  are  not  inhuman 
brutes,  delighting  in  atrocities ;  in  the  conduct  of  this 
war  they  have  shown  themselves  no  more  cruel  and 
brutal  than  the  French,  and  far  less  so  than  the  Rus- 
sians and  your  brown  and  black  native  troops.  The 
Teuton  is  not  by  nature  bestial,  bloodthirsty,  or  merci- 
less any  more  than  is  the  Briton  or  any  other  civilized 
European,  and  he  yields  to  the  evil  passions  of  war  no 
more  readily.     Germanic  civilization  is  not  inferior  to 

58 


A  QUESTION    FOR  ENGLAND 

French  or  English  or  ItaHan  civihzation,  though  dif- 
ferent; on  the  contrary  it  might  well  be  maintained 
that  the  only  nation  which  has  abolished  poverty,  the 
one  whose  educational  system  is  the  best  in  the  world, 
whose  municipal  governments  are  models,  which  out- 
strips all  nations  in  scientific  and  industrial  energy, 
shows  distinct  elements  of  superiority.  The  Germans 
are  not  mad  with  military  ambition,  nor  bent  on  any 
career  of  world  conquest,  determined  to  impose  the 
German  language  and  German  institutions  on  unwill- 
ing peoples.  They  asked  for  a  place  in  the  sun.  But 
a  place  in  the  sun  is  not  the  whole  earth. 

Come,  let  us  be  reasonable.  In  plain  justice  you 
must  admire  the  Germans,  even  though  you  do  not 
love  them.  If  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  is  musk  in 
your  nostrils,  Teutonic  civilization  cannot  be  stench. 
In  the  arts  of  peace  the  Germans  challenge  emulation. 
In  war  they  are  the  astonishment  of  all  history.  No 
other  people  could  have  withstood  so  overwhelming  a 
coalition.  Not  only  in  a  military  and  technical  man- 
ner are  they  proving  their  strength,  but  in  a  moral  and 
intellectual  way  too.  In  England  you  have  an  op- 
pressive censorship ;  and  you  have  lost  for  the  time 
being  many  of  your  constitutional  rights.  In  Ger- 
many the  censorship  confines  itself  to  its  proper  duty 
of  suppressing  military  information ;  there  the  most 
unfriendly  news  is  published,  including  the  daily  Brit- 
ish and  French  war  bulletins ;  in  any  German  city  one 
may  read  the  current  English  and  French  newspapers, 
and  buy  the  books  and  pamphlets  written  to  expose 

59 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

German  guilt.  Is  it  so  with  you?  Or  in  Russia  or 
France?  Does  this  mean  anything  except  that  the 
German  people,  alone  among  the  belligerents,  are  al- 
lowed freely  to  face  the  truth?  And  there  are  Eng- 
lishmen who  still  speak  of  this  as  the  Kaiser's  war,  or 
a  Junkers'  war! 

For  the  Germans  this  is  a  people's  war,  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  term.  The  great  spiritual  fact  of  the 
struggle  is  this  flaming,  unbroken  conviction  of  the 
German  people  that  they  are  right.  Though  your 
statesmen  may  have  been  successful  with  Russia, 
France  and  Italy,  they  have  done  very  badly  with 
Germany.  They  have  not  left  a  single  German,  high 
or  low,  with  the  smallest  doubt  that  Britain  engineered 
a  conspiracy  to  destroy  its  rival.  The  explanation  is 
simple.  The  Germans  look  to  history,  remote  and 
recent.  Englishmen  work  themselves  into  a  great 
consternation  over  what  Prussian  militarism  is  going 
to  do;  and  they  try  to  frighten  neutrals  with  pen- 
pictures  of  its  future  depredations.  But  Germans 
point  to  the  actual  performances  of  Prussian  militar- 
ism, and  contrast  them  with  the  concrete  performances 
of  British  imperialism. 

They  point  out,  for  example,  that  this  terrible 
menace  of  Prussianism,  to  which  you  impute  such  evil 
designs,  has  kept  the  peace  in  Europe  since  1870;  that 
it  never  seized  a  favorable  opportunity  to  precipitate 
war,  and  neglected  to  attack  Russia  when  crippled  by 
Japan,  France  during  the  Dreyfus  affair,  England 
when  the  Boers  disclosed  her  weakness.    They  recall 

60 


A  QUESTION   FOR  ENGLAND 

that  the  German  government,  in  the  face  of  a  hostile 
press  at  home,  sacrificed  German  interests  in  Morocco 
in  order  to  avoid  a  European  conflagration.  And  they 
ask,  has  British  imperiahsm  ever  refrained  from  ag- 
gression when  its  "interests"  were  involved?  England 
has  formed  coalitions  successively  against  Spain,  Hol- 
land and  France;  she  has  swept  from  the  sea  every 
fleet  which  dared  to  rival  her  own.  Her  recent  atti- 
tude toward  Germany  has  been  of  a  piece  with  this 
historic  policy ;  the  efforts  of  her  statesmen  have  aimed 
consistently  at  the  enfeeblement  and  the  isolation  of 
Germany. 

One  of  the  British  prophets  of  this  war  was  Pro- 
fessor Cramb.  In  his  book  he  wrote :  "  'France,'  said 
Bismarck  in  September,  1870,  'must  be  paralyzed ;  for 
she  will  never  forgive  us  our  victories.'  And  in  the 
same  spirit  Treitschke  avers:  England  will  never  for- 
give us  our  strength.  And  not  without  justice  he 
delineates  English  policy  throughout  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  as  aimed  consistently  at  the 
repression  of  Prussia." 

What  are  you  fighting  for? 

Here  is  your  answer.  The  repression  of  Prussia! 
Since  Germany  became  a  power,  and  particularly  since 
she  began  to  build  a  navy,  she  aroused  increasing  dis- 
like and  distrust  amongst  you.  In  1897  the  Saturday 
Review  announced  the  slogan  Germaniam  esse  delen- 
dam,  and  that  program  has  been  steadily  backed  by 
a  powerful  element  of  British  opinion.  Your  states- 
men have  pursued  the  old,  unimaginative  politics  of 

61 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

annoyances  and  curbs ;  they  have  done  their  utmost 
to  balk  every  German  attempt  at  expansion  in  Africa 
or  in  Asia,  and  sometimes  their  interference  has  been 
nothing  short  of  wantonly  malicious,  as  in  the  instances 
of  Morocco  and  of  the  Bagdad  Railw^ay.  Militarism 
in  Germany?  Of  course  there  is  militarism  there,  and 
some  of  its  aspects  are  not  bright.  But  why  not? 
British  policy  for  a  decade  and  more  has  done  all  in 
its  power  to  create  a  military  temper  in  Germany,  to 
throw  her  into  the  hands  of  the  war  party,  and  to  lash 
into  being  that  tigerish  ferocity  with  which  she  now 
fights  you.  Commercial  jealousy  and  irritation  in 
manufacturing  circles,  blended  with  imperialistic 
voracity  and  certain  calculations  (or  miscalculations) 
of  high  politics,  have  led  Great  Britain  into  an  anti- 
German  policy  and  an  anti-German  war. 

You  will  resent  this  answer  to  our  question.  To 
declare  that  England  is  fighting,  not  for  Belgium,  not 
for  France,  not  for  the  sanctity  of  treaties  or  human 
rights,  but  merely  for  selfish  imperialistic  reasons,  and 
rather  ill-conceived  reasons  at  that,  strikes  you,  I  am 
sure,  as  grossly  distorted.  When  you  look  into  your 
own  souls  you  find  no  such  sordid  motives.  You  find 
only  an  intense  love  of  England  and  of  England's 
honor,  and  a  sense  of  British  quality  and  worth.  I 
know  how  you  feel  and  I  know  that  the  things  you 
cherish  are  realities.  But  these  noble  realities,  I  sub- 
mit, have  very  little  to  do  with  the  beginning  of  this 
war,  or  its  end. 

And  you  could  see  this  too,  were  you  able,  even  for 

62 


A  QUESTION   FOR  ENGLAND 

one  brief  liour,  to  throw  yourselves  into  complete  sym- 
pathy with  your  opponents,  and  look  at  the  world 
tlirough  their  eyes.  Had  you  attempted  any  such 
sympathetic  understanding  of  Germany  two  years  ago, 
this  war,  I  am  convinced,  never  would  have  happened. 
You  would  have  seen  that  the  very  future  existence 
of  Germany  depends  on  her  overseas  markets,  and 
that  she  must  be  able  to  guard  these  at  all  costs.  As 
it  is,  you  have  been  applying  one  logic  to  Germany  and 
another  to  England.  You  have  looked  upon  the  Ger- 
man navy  as  an  impertinence  and  a  threat,  even  though 
the  growth  of  the  German  navy  has  been  accompanied 
by  a  constant  demand  for  the  freedom  of  the  seas 
(i.  e.,  the  abolition  of  the  capture  of  private  property 
at  sea).  But  you  have  never  been  able  to  see  that  the 
British  navy,  nearly  twice  as  large,  is  a  threat  (to 
Germany  and  possibly  to  others)  especially  when  ac- 
companied by  a  stubborn  and  effective  refusal  to  have 
the  seas  neutralized.  You  could  denounce  colonial 
greed  in  Germany,  and  stand  ready  to  fight  her  if  she 
acquired  an  African  colony,  or  a  naval  base  in  the 
Atlantic ;  but  British  expansion,  though  unlimited, 
seemed  justified,  no  matter  at  whose  expense ;  and  you 
could  applaud  when  Bonar  Law  announced  in  July, 
1915,  that  the  Entente  Allies  had  torn  from  the  Teutons 
450,000  square  miles  of  colonial  possessions.  What  is 
meat  for  you,  you  declare  to  be  poison  for  Germany. 
You  tried,  in  your  supremacy,  to  enforce  a  dictation 
on  others  to  which  you  would  not  submit  for  a  moment. 
The  worst  you  can  properly  say  of  Germany  is  that 

63 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

she  challenged  that  supremacy,  and  that  she  may  yet 
force  you  to  treat  her  as  an  equal. 

The  vital  question  remains:  What  of  the  future? 
The  past  is  past;  it  must  bury  its  dead.  To  fix  the 
blame,  to  point  the  accusing  finger,  to  try  to  anticipate 
the  condemnation  of  history,  is  in  itself  a  fruitless 
task.  After  all,  the  stupidest  people  in  the  world  are 
they  who — on  whichever  side — wish  to  "punish"  some 
one  for  this  war, — this  ultimate  calamity  in  which  each 
belligerent  shares  a  portion  of  the  guilt.  What  strikes 
one  in  this  gigantic  struggle  between  the  British  and 
German  nations  is  not  so  much  its  wickedness  and  its 
fierceness,  as  its  needlessness,  its  utter  irrationality. 
Germany  is,  as  I  said  before,  your  natural  ally;  there 
are  a  thousand  valid  reasons  for  friendship  to  one 
valid  reason  for  hostility.  Is  it  too  late  to  hope  for  a 
reconciliation  between  these  two  great  peoples  which 
are  so  alike  in  their  virtues,  however  much  they  may 
differ  in  their  faults?  I  think  you  begin  to  see  what 
a  task  you  have  on  your  hands  in  seeking  to  humble 
a  nation  so  strong  and  so  indignant  as  Germany.  How- 
ever the  war  results,  neither  Germany  nor  England 
can  be  annihilated.  And  that  is  well,  for  there  is  room 
for  both  in  the  world.  The  highest  ideal  of  inter- 
national development  is  not  a  level  uniformity,  but 
many  divergent  cultures,  each  intensifying  its  own 
peculiar  merits.  Will  it  be  impossible  for  the  English 
to  put  their  pride — even  though  it  turn  out  to  be  a 
wounded  pride — behind  them,  and  make  that  great 
effort  toward   a  sympathetic  understanding  of   Ger- 

64 


A  QUESTION   FOR  ENGLAND 

many  whicli  should  have  been  made  long  ago?  We 
may  hope  that  the  effort  can  be  made,  for  in  the  final 
restoration  of  Anglo-German  friendship  lies  one  of 
the  world's  best  hopes,  and  the  strongest  guarantee  of 
future  peace. 


65 


FRANCE ! 

THERE  are  times  when  we  have  to  speak  sharply 
to  those  we  love  best.  The  friends  of  France 
will  remonstrate  with  her,  and  the  sincerer  their  af- 
fection the  plainer  will  be  their  speech. 

For  France  is  living  in  a  dream,  wrapped  in  illusion. 
Because  she  suffers  much  she  thinks  her  cause  is  just, 
and  because  her  soul  is  high  she  imagines  her  deed  is 
good.  Every  nation  at  war  tends  to  idealize  its  mo- 
tives, and  this  is  particularly  true  of  this  world-war, — 
possibly  just  for  the  reason  that  most  of  its  causes 
were  selfish.  The  nations  enlist  under  the  banners  of 
truth  and  righteousness,  of  humanity  and  pity,  of 
liberty  and  civilization.  But  the  discerning  everywhere 
see  through  the  sham.  In  England  there  are  people 
who  call  this  sort  of  thing  "tosh,"  and  in  America 
there  are  many  who  call  it  "buncombe."  In  most 
countries  these  grandiose  sentiments  are  not  taken 
with  entire  seriousness ;  but  with  you,  apparently,  yes. 
No  motive  is  too  altruistic  or  too  noble  for  you  to  pro- 
claim. You  furnish  the  world  an  example  of  national 
self-deception. 

The  truth  is  often  like  a  shower  of  ice-water.  It 
is  gratifying  to  vaunt  the  glory  of  France  or  to  inveigh 
against  the  wickedness  of  the  enemy;  but  it  is  not  so 

(A 


FRANCE 

pleasant  to  talk  of  secret  treaties,  of  Russian  securities 
held  by  French  investors,  of  the  subjugation  of 
Morocco,  or  of  the  intrigues  of  the  Colonial  party. 
Yet  the  one  is  ebullitions  of  the  war  spirit,  while  the 
other  represents  the  realities  of  history.  The  French 
are  a  proud,  a  gifted,  and  a  sensitive  race.  But  does 
your  pride  exempt  you  from  facing  the  facts?  Why 
is  it  that  you  ignore  or  slur  over  aspects  of  this  strug- 
gle which  are  so  desperately  clear  to  an  outsider? 

Any  sane  discussion  of  the  part  France  is  playing 
in  the  war  must  center  about  the  Franco-Russian 
alliance.  That  is  the  cardinal  fact.  A  quarrel  breaks 
out  between  Servia  and  Austria-Hungary.  The  occa- 
sion is  the  murder  of  the  Austrian  heir,  but  the  real 
dispute  is  the  balance  of  power  in  the  Balkans.  To 
settle  the  supremacy  of  the  Near  East,  Germany  and 
Russia  fly  at  one  another's  throats.  But  the  West  is 
dragged  in,  and  the  whole  world  flames  up, — for  w'hat 
reason?  Because  France  acts  with  Russia.  France 
makes  Russian  interests,  Russian  designs,  Russian 
ambitions,  her  own. 

G.  Lowes  Dickinson  calls  this  long-standing  bargain 
of  yours  with  the  Terror  in  the  North  an  "unholy 
alliance."  But  let  that  go  for  the  moment.  The 
motives  which  prompted  France  to  champion  Russia 
are  a  separate  question.  First  of  all  let  us  agree  on 
the  simple  fact  that  France's  action  was  conditioned  on 
that  of  her  ally.  There  has  been  a  notable  lack  of 
straightforwardness  in  discussing  this  point,  and  some 
of  you  have  tried  to  delude  yourselves  into  the  notion 

67 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

that  you  were  wantonly  attacked.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  for  example,  your  political  and  military 
leaders  showed  the  greatest  concern  not  to  commit 
any  act  of  "aggression."  French  troops  were  with- 
drawn ten  kilometers  behind  the  frontier.  Was  this 
ostrich-like  act  of  innocence  undertaken  to  impress 
the  French  populace,  or  to  impress  the  outside  world? 
Can  you  deny  that  France  was  already  committed  to 
fight  for  her  northern  ally?  Was  there  anything  at 
all  which  Germany  could  have  done,  or  left  undone, 
which  would  have  kept  you  out? 

On  July  29,  1914,  the  Russian  ambassador  at  Paris 
telegraphed  to  Sazonof :  "Viviani  has  just  confirmed 
to  me  the  French  government's  firm  determination  to 
act  in  concert  with  Russia.  This  determination  is 
upheld  by  all  classes  of  society  and  by  the  political 
parties,  including  the  Radical  Socialists"  (Russian 
Orange  Book,  No.  55).  The  same  day  Sazonof  tele- 
graphed back :  "Please  inform  the  French  govern- 
ment .  .  .  that  we  are  sincerely  grateful  to  them  for 
the  declaration  which  the  French  ambassador  made  me 
on  their  behalf,  to  the  effect  that  we  could  count  clearly 
upon  the  assistance  of  our  ally,  France.  In  the 
existing  circumstances,  that  declaration  is  especially 
valuable  to  us"  (Orange  Book,  No.  58). 

These  quotations  are  from  a  hundred  possible. 
Every  line  in  both  the  Russian  Orange  Book  and  the 
French  Yellow  Book  confirms  the  allegiance  of  France 
to  Russia.  Every  statesman  in  Europe  knew  what 
your  attitude  would  be.    The  Germans  understood  it; 

68 


FRANCE 

yet  they  pressed  you  for  an  open  statement  of  your 
intentions.  Your  only  answer  was  to  mobilize  the  en- 
tire army  and  the  fleet. 

Viviani  acted  throughout  in  complete  subservience 
to  Russia.  At  the  same  time  he  acted  with  a  re- 
markable absence  of  candor  toward  Germany.  Let 
me  illustrate.  On  July  31  he  informed  his  ambassador 
at  St.  Petersburg  that  "Baron  von  Schoen  [German 
ambassador  at  Paris]  finally  asked  me,  in  the  name  of 
his  government,  what  the  attitude  of  France  would  be 
in  case  of  a  war  between  Germany  and  Russia.  He 
told  me  that  he  would  come  for  my  reply  tomorrow 
[Saturday]  at  1  o'clock.  /  have  no  intention  of  mak- 
ing any  statement  to  him  on  this  subject,  and  I  shall 
confine  myself  to  telling  him  that  France  will  have  re- 
gard to  her  interests.  The  government  of  the  Re- 
public need  not  indeed  give  any  account  of  her  inten- 
tions except  to  her  ally"  (French  Yellow  Book,  No. 
117).  On  the  following  day,  August  1,  Viviani  had 
the  audacity  to  telegraph  to  his  ambassadors  abroad, 
"This  attitude  of  breaking  oflF  diplomatic  relations 
without  direct  dispute,  and  although  he  [i.  e.,  Baron 
von  Schoen]  has  not  received  any  definitely  negative 
ansiver,  is  characterirtic  of  the  determination  of  Ger- 
many to  make  war  against  France"  (Yellow  Book,  No. 
120).  How,  in  the  name  of  Janus,  was  Germany  to 
receive  "any  definitely  negative  answer"  if  Viviani 
refused  to  "make  any  statement  on  this  subject"? 
What  would  you  call  this  sort  of  thing  in  ordinary 
aflfairs, — hypocrisy  or  deceit?     This  attempt  to  cloak 

69 


GERMANY    MISJUDGED 

hostile  designs  with  silence  deceives  no  one;  it  was 
perfectly  clear  what  French  "intentions"  were.  You 
intended  to  strike  Germany  from  the  west,  should  she 
be  at  war  with  Russia  in  the  east. 

Let  us  not  try  to  evade  a  patent  truth.  The  histori- 
cal fact,  from  which  there  is  no  escape,  is  that  you 
were  bound  to  go  in  if  Russia  went  in.  Perhaps  your 
treaty  made  it  obligatory  on  you  to  fight  by  the  side 
of  Russia;  in  any  event  there  was  no  disposition  on 
the  part  of  your  leaders  to  keep  the  sword  sheathed. 
All  that  talk  in  the  days  of  the  crisis  about  patrols 
crossing  the  frontiers,  about  German  troops  firing  on 
French  outposts,  and  about  French  aeroplanes  flying 
over  German  territory,  does  not  touch  the  core  of  the 
situation.  These  allegations,  from  whichever  side, 
are  mere  banalities  and  pose.  The  die  was  cast;  it 
had  been  cast  for  years.  Even  if  you  impute  the  most 
sinister  motives  to  Germany,  even  if  you  prove  to 
your  own  satisfaction  that  she  started  on  a  career  of 
world  domination,  you  do  not  demonstrate  that  she 
wanted  to  make  war  on  France  in  1914.  W'hatever 
her  motives,  Germany  would  have  preferred  to  deal 
with  one  enemy  at  a  time,  would  she  not?  It  would 
have  been  far  better  for  her,  you  must  acknowledge, 
to  fight  Russia  alone,  than  to  grapple  at  the  same  time 
with  Russia,  France,  England,  and  all  their  allies. 

For  you,  therefore,  to  declare  that  you  suffered  an 
unprovoked  attack,  and  that  you  are  now  purely  on 
the  defensive,  is  to  fall  short  of  an  honest  avowal. 
Germany,  it  is  true,  sent  you  an  ultimatum  and  put  a 

70 


FRAN'CE 

time-limit  on  your  preparations ;  and  at  the  end  of  that 
limit  she  invaded  your  territory.  These,  however, 
were  acts  necessary  to  her  plan  of  strategy.  She  knew 
you  were  bent  on  fighting.  Why  should  she  not  seize 
the  initial  advantage?  If  you  persist  in  describing 
yourselves  as  being  on  the  defensive  it  is  merely  be- 
cause no  nation  ever  admits  that  it  is  acting  on  the 
aggressive.  Of  this  there  is  a  striking  example  in 
French  history.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  toyed  with  the 
notion  that  he  was  merely  defending  himself.  In  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  Life  of  Napoleon  the  following  conver- 
sation between  the  emperor  and  his  minister  Decres 
is  recorded.  The  conversation  takes  place  immediately 
after  Napoleon's  marriage  with  Maria  Louisa. 

Napoleon — "The  good  citizens  rejoice  sincerely  at 
my  marriage,  monsieur?" 

Decres — "Very  much,  Sire." 

Napoleon — "I  understand  they  think  the  lion  will 
go  to  slumber,  ha?" 

Decres — "To  speak  the  truth,  Sire,  they  entertain 
some  hopes  of  that  nature." 

Napoleon — "They  are  mistaken:  yet  it  is  not  the 
fault  of  the  lion :  slumber  would  be  as  agreeable  to 
him  as  to  others.  But  see  you  not  that  while  I  have 
the  air  of  being  the  attacking  party,  I  am,  in  fact, 
acting  only  on  the  defensive?" 

There  has  been  altogether  too  much  use  made  of 
this  phrase  "on  the  defensive."  If  you,  France,  are 
on  the  defensive,  it  is  only  in  that  attenuated  sense 
that  a  victory  of  Germany  over  Russia  would  have 

71 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

tilted  the  balance  of  power  in  favor  of  Germany.  But 
why  were  you  interested  in  the  balance  of  power? 
\Miy  were  you,  the  innocent  and  idealistic  French, 
interested  in  wars  and  military  combinations?  The 
whole  question,  you  see,  simmers  down  to  this :  Why 
were  you  in  alliance  with  Russia? 

Surely  it  was  not  on  account  of  sympathy  with  the 
Russian  government.  There  were  never  two  more 
oddly  assorted  yoke-mates  than  republican,  intellectual 
France,  and  autocratic,  illiterate  Russia.  Whatever 
way  you  look  at  it,  Russia  is  the  most  backward  power 
of  Europe,  industrially,  educationally  and  politically. 
A  great  deal  of  nonsense  has  been  published  in  France 
lately,  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  eulogize  the  Rus- 
sians and  to  paint  in  bright  colors  the  drab  reality. 
Attention  has  been  called  to  Russian  art,  music,  litera- 
ture. But  this  is  simply  to  magnify  the  exceptional. 
Every  one  admits  that  Muscovite  culture  has  pro- 
duced a  few  rare  flowers,  just  as  every  one  admits 
that  potentially  the  Russian  civilization  has  admirable 
aspects,  realizable  after  it  has  emerged  from  medieval- 
ism. The  typical  Russia  of  today,  however,  is  not  a 
few  revolutionists,  nor  a  handful  of  intellectuals 
excoriating  their  government.  The  typical  Russia  is 
the  secret  police,  the  superstitious  millions,  the  military 
despotism,  the  Siberia  of  exile,  the  grave  of  a  dozen 
nationalities,  and  the  gehenna  of  the  Jews.  That  is 
Russia  as  the  whole  world  knows  it,  and  no  amount  of 
sentiment  or  whitewash  can  hide  the  truth.    The  whole 

72 


FRANCE 

world  knows,  too,  that  Russia  changes,  and  can  change, 
very  slowly. 

Yet  into  the  arms  of  this  cruel  and  unscrupulous 
bureaucracy  France  threw  herself  unreservedly.  She 
formed  with  the  Bear  of  the  North  a  binding  military 
alliance  which  has  brought  her,  at  the  last,  to  the 
supreme  ordeal  and  sacrifice  she  now  undergoes.  Her 
motive  could  not  have  been  fear.  A  France  pacific  in 
aim,  and  unallied  with  great  military  powers,  would 
have  been  no  more  the  object  of  suspicion,  or  the 
victim  of  aggressive  designs,  than  would  Switzerland. 
Germany  would  not  have  molested  a  non-militarist 
France,  for  Germany  had  defeated  France  thoroughly, 
and  extirpated  French  influence  from  her  internal 
politics.  There's  the  rub!  Germany  had  defeated 
France  in  1870-71.  She  had  humbled  France  as  she 
had  never  been  humbled  before.  She  had  taken 
Alsace-Lorraine,  borderland  provinces,  neither  exactly 
French  nor  exactly  German,  as  the  visible  badge  of 
her  triumph.  Formerly  these  two  provinces  belonged 
to  the  German  empire,  and  were  taken  in  the  midst  of 
peaceful  conditions  without  even  a  show  of  right. 
Lorraine  became  French,  but  Alsace  remained  Ger- 
man with  the  exception  of  a  small  district  on  the 
southern  frontier. 

France  formed  the  alliance  with  Russia  when  sting- 
ing from  the  bitterness  of  that  defeat  of  1870 — 71. 
Russia  afforded  the  hope  of  an  ultimate  revenge.  Rus- 
sia was  courted,  flattered,  financed.  French  gold 
bought  Russian  securities  in  such  quantities  that  the 

73 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

whole  of  thrifty  France  came  to  have  an  economic 
interest  in  maintaining  the  pohtical  mesalliance. 

Bismarck  said  that  France  would  never  forgive 
Germany  her  victories.  Apparently  he  spoke  the 
truth.  France  fights  to  restore  Alsace-Lorraine.  Yet 
is  it  because  the  inhabitants  of  that  territory  have  been 
oppressed?  You  will  complain  that  when  your  troops 
entered  Alsace  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  they  were 
treated  to  poisoned  wells  and  were  shot  in  the  back 
by  the  peasants.  The  Alsatians  are  among  the  bravest 
and  most  loyal  of  German  soldiers, — these  Alsatians 
you  wanted  to  "liberate."  You  fight  to  recover 
provinces  which  do  not  want  to  be  recovered — for  the 
final  glory  of  France.  La  Revanche!  Yet  after  all  is 
not  revenge  a  very  human  motive? 

Yes,  revenge  is  very  human,  but  it  can  hardly  serve 
as  an  excuse  for  dragging  the  West  into  a  war  over 
the  Balkans,  and  for  decimating  the  whole  of  Europe. 
Revenge  is  supposed  to  be  more  the  attribute  of  the 
Red  Indian  than  of  the  civilized  modern.  Why  should 
France  alone  be  incapable  of  forgetting  a  past  defeat? 
Why  should  she  cherish  the  spark  of  hatred  for  more 
than  a  generation,  waiting  the  hour  to  blow  it  into 
flame?  The  alignment  in  this  war  shows  how  many 
hatreds,  how  many  revenges,  have  been  foregone. 
Russia  fights  by  the  side  of  England  and  Japan :  she 
forgets  Crimea  and  the  Yalu.  Germany  and  Austria, 
once  enemies,  are  not  merely  allies,  they  are  a  single 
unit  of  military  administration.  Italy  was  a  member 
of  the  Triple  Alliance  (although  no  one  can  recall  the 

74 


FRANCE 

fact  without  shame).  Bulgaria  linked  with  Turkey, — 
who  would  have  thought  it  possible?  You,  France, 
you  alone,  pursued  a  policy  of  historic  revenge.  You 
alone  found  a  wounded  pride  too  sore  for  healing.  For 
forty  years  the  black  ribbons  of  mourning  fluttered 
from  the  statue  of  Strassburg.  You  have  taken  them 
off  now, — to  place  them  on  a  million  graves. 

But  you  did  not  want  war,  you  are  protesting.  The 
mass  of  the  French  people  were  pacific.  That  must 
be  admitted.  But  the  mass  of  people  in  no  country 
wanted  war.  The  Germans  did  not  want  it ;  the  Eng- 
lish did  not  want  it ;  the  Russians  knew  nothing  about 
it.  Yet  they  all  accepted  it  after  it  came ;  and  now 
they  give  their  lives  gladly  for  their  country.  Oddly 
enough  the  very  fact  that  the  present  war  was  made 
by  governments  rallies  support  to  those  governments, 
and  enlists  the  loyalty  of  the  peoples.  You  can  see  in 
your  own  nation  how  the  paradox  works.  The  French, 
you  say,  generally  scorned  war, — C'est  trop  bete,  la 
guerre.  Therefore  when  the  war  came  they  were 
convinced  that  it  was  not  of  their  own  making.  It 
must  be  some  one's  fault.  And  whose  but  the  enemy's? 
It  must  have  been  the  vile  Germans,  the  contemptible 
Boche,  who  brought  this  about.  In  war-time  we  com- 
pletely forget  the  Biblical  injunction  about  the  beam 
in  our  own  eye. 

Yet  after  all  the  French  people  must  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  the  actions  of  their  government.  Possibly 
many  of  you  did  not  realize  where  the  alliance  with 
Russia   and  the  policy  of  colonial  expansion   would 

75 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

ultimately  lead  you.  You  may  have  been  hypnotized 
by  the  banner  of  La  Revanche  and  the  call  of  La 
Gloire.  But  you  have  a  republican  government;  you 
are  a  democracy.  There  has  been  in  France  for  a 
generation  a  strong  war  party.  In  the  last  decade 
or  two,  through  all  the  kaleidoscopic  changes  of  your 
politics,  it  has  been  apparent  that  this  party  of 
"aggressive  patriotism"  was  gaining  strength,  gather- 
ing power.  This  effected  the  entente  with  England. 
It  engineered  the  adventure  in  Algeria,  and  later  man- 
aged the  strangulation  of  Morocco.  It  maintained  a 
strong  financial  interest  in  the  blood-stained  conces- 
sionaire system  in  the  French  and  Belgian  Congo.  It 
constantly  worked  to  embitter  Anglo-German  relations, 
— an  effort  ably  abetted  by  the  imperialist  party  in 
Britain.  It  undermined  every  attempt  to  achieve  a 
reconciliation  between  France  and  Germany,  and  it 
brought  about  the  ruin  of  Caillaux.  In  other  words, 
the  Colonial  party,  the  Chauvinist  party,  was  con- 
tinuously successful  in  its  designs.  Although  some  of 
the  most  patriotic  and  far-sighted  statesmen  in  France 
never  ceased  to  combat  it  and  the  interests  it  repre- 
sented, they  were  not  able  to  break  its  grip.  You  had, 
indeed,  a  popular  test  of  its  power  just  previous  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  in  the  elections  on  the  Three 
Year  Law.  The  Three  Year  Law  was  sustained.  The 
militarists  had  won.  The  "New  France,"  the  France 
of  aggressive  temper,  of  nationalistic  bombast,  had 
been  approved. 

There  was,  I  submit,  a  discernible  downward  trend 

76 


FRANCE 

in  the  policies  of  the  successive  governments  under 
the  Third  RepubHc,  and  to  some  extent  a  decay  in 
French  sentiment.  There  have  been  times  when  France 
stood  for  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity,  and  was 
ready  to  make  great  sacrifices  for  unselfish  ends.  But 
the  France  which  battles  to  recover  Alsace-Lorraine 
and  to  enthrone  the  Russian  Czar  in  Constantinople, 
has  drifted  a  long  way  from  the  ideals  of  the  Revo- 
lution; just  as  the  England  of  Grey  and  Asquith  is  far 
different  from  the  England  of  Cobden,  Bright  and 
Palmerston.  Indeed  this  war  could  not  have  happened 
had  there  not  been  a  distinct  deterioration  in  the  tone 
of  European  politics.  All  sentiment  was  squeezed  out 
of  international  relations,  and  along  with  it  most  of  the 
principle.  One  indication  was  the  support  given  by 
the  Liberal  West  to  the  Russian  bureaucracy,  at  a  time 
when  that  bureaucracy  was  menaced  by  Liberal  revolt 
at  home.  Another  proof  was  the  cynical  abandonment 
of  the  weaker  nations  and  the  colored  races.  Morocco, 
the  Congo,  Finland,  Persia,  the  Balkans!  These  out- 
rages never  would  have  been  tolerated  by  any  Euro- 
pean civilization  that  was  not  preoccupied  with  selfish 
and  sinister  plots  and  counterplots.  Things  are  now 
at  such  a  pass  that  you  are  able  to  laud  in  the  most 
fulsome  terms  an  Italy  which  bargains  away  its  honor, 
enters  upon  a  career  of  national  piracy,  and  attacks 
its  own  allies  in  their  hour  of  supreme  peril.  There 
has  been  a  debacle  in  morals. 

This  "New  France"  is  the  worst  France  since  the 
seventies,  since  the  France  of  Paul  Deroulede.     You 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

have  revived  that  old  lust  for  military  glory  which 
France,  through  all  her  history,  has  never  been  able 
quite  to  uproot.  That  is  the  heart  of  the  matter.  It 
will  not  do  to  picture  yourselves  as  the  good  white 
knight  forced  to  buckle  on  armor  to  meet  the  "Prus- 
sian menace."  The  obvious  historical  facts  disprove 
the  assertion.  There  has  never  been  for  you  a  Prus- 
sian menace.  In  the  last  forty  years  you,  a  people 
with  a  rapidly  falling  birth-rate  and  not  essentially 
commercial,  entered  on  a  policy  of  colonial  expansion. 
Germany,  with  more  right,  did  the  same  thing.  But 
you  succeeded  in  acquiring  territory  while  she, 
relatively,  failed.  But  has  she  ever  balked  you  in  your 
enterprises?  Quite  the  contrary.  The  spurs  of  the 
French  chanticleer  proved  sharper  and  more  annoying 
than  the  beak  of  the  German  eagle.  Remember 
Morocco!  In  all  those  forty  years  the  Mailed  Fist 
was  not  once  lifted  against  you.  It  would  not  have 
struck  now  had  you  not  challenged  the  very  existence 
of  Germany  by  the  alliances  with  Russia  and  England. 
What  a  masterly  stroke  of  statecraft  it  was,  this  plac- 
ing of  Germany  in  a  military  vise !  Your  leaders  could 
not  resist  that  temptation.  They  saw  a  France  re- 
juvenated, reborn,  triumphant!  And  the  soul  of  the 
French  rose  to  the  vision. 

Well,  you  have  the  glory  already,  though  not  the 
victory.  No  one  of  the  Allies  has  made  so  splendid  a 
showing  of  military  prowess  and  vigor.  But  at  what 
a  cost  in  lives  and  human  agony!  No  nation  ever 
bought  its  laurels  more   dearly.     And   who  can   tell 

78 


FRANCE 

wliat  sacrifices  you  may  yet  be  called  upon  to  make? 
How  idle  it  is,  after  all,  to  reproach  the  French!  You 
are  intoxicated ;  the  madness  is  in  your  blood.  It  is 
too  late  to  turn  back  now ;  you  must  see  this  through 
to  the  bitter  end.  Yet  the  whole  world  grieves  for  you, 
because  the  whole  world  loves  you.  It  loves  you  not 
for  your  ambitions  or  your  bellicose  moods,  but  for 
the  wholesome  sanity  of  your  life  in  times  of  peace, 
for  your  gaiety  and  wit,  because  of  your  intellectual 
and  artistic  brilliance,  because  you  are,  in  a  word,  the 
most  Greek  of  modern  nations.  Americans  especially 
hold  you  dear,  for  they  have  not  forgotten  those  flashes 
of  sympathy  you  have  shown  for  the  ideals  which 
America,  in  a  blundering  way,  is  trying  to  realize. 
We  see  you  now  as  the  most  pitiable  figure  in  this 
world  war,  because  you  suffer  so  much  and  w-ith  the 
least  need.  Our  sympathy  is  not  less  because  you 
have,  for  the  moment,  turned  your  back  on  the  great 
ideals  of  human  progress.  You  are  like  a  beautiful 
woman  we  have  loved  and  who  has  betrayed  our 
loyalty,  and  we  look  on  you  and  think,  how  can  you 
prove  so  false  and  be  so  fair.  The  fact  that  you  suffer 
for  your  own  sins  as  well  as  for  the  sins  of  others  only 
makes  the  heartbreak  heavier.  Like  France  herself 
we  bow  our  heads  to  mourn  your  irrevocable  dead  and 
unreturning  brave. 


79 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  AMERICA 

AN  able  American  historian  predicted  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  war  that  the  United  States  would 
be  pro-German  in  its  sympathies  within  four  months. 
He  gave  two  reasons.  The  first  was  that  the  Ameri- 
can mind  would  puncture  the  lid  of  lies  which  Euro- 
pean diplomats  had  clamped  over  the  explosion  in 
July,  1914,  and  would  begin  to  understand  the  real 
position  in  which  Germany  found  herself.  You  see 
he  was  a  philosophical  historian.  His  second  reason 
was  that  the  German-Americans  would  argue  the  rest 
of  us  around  to  their  point  of  view. 

It  is  superfluous  to  say  that  the  historian  was  mis- 
taken. Not  four  months,  but  four  times  four  months, 
have  passed,  and  the  United  States  is  far  from  pro- 
German.  Our  pro-Ally  contingent,  most  conspicuous 
in  Boston  and  New  York,  is  as  violent  as  ever,  both 
in  its  opinions  and  the  expression  of  them.  There 
exists,  indeed,  a  very  active  and  powerful  element 
which  is  working — covertly  for  the  most  part — to  in- 
volve the  United  States  in  a  war  with  the  Central 
Powers.  The  German-Americans  have  not  argued  us 
around.  If  they  started  out  with  such  intention  they 
have  failed.  Their  protestations  may  have  had  some 
effect,  but  they  themselves  have  been  ridiculed,  scolded, 


TIIK   ATTITUUI-:   OF    AMERICA 

browbeaten,  sneered  at.  To  designate  German-Amer- 
icans, together  with  their  friends  the  Irish-Americans 
and  the  Austrian-Americans,  a  new  term  of  reproach 
has  been  invented,  "hyphenates." 

II 
The  German-Americans  have  been  cruelly  misrepre- 
sented. There  is  no  sounder  or  more  desirable  element 
in  our  population  than  our  Teutonic  blood.  There  is 
no  element  which  has  displayed  devotion  to  the  coun- 
try, or  civic  or  private  virtue,  in  greater  degree.  Yet 
in  these  months  of  war  they  have  been  forced  into  a 
most  distressing  position.  They  have  daily  read  in  the 
press  the  grossest  insults  to  themselves  and  to  the 
land  of  their  ancestors.  They  constantly  see  the  news 
poisoned  by  calumny  and  abuse.  They  live  in  a  coun- 
try which  has  declared  its  neutrality  but  which  sup- 
plies in  tremendous  quantities  the  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion to  kill  their  kin,  and  they  are  powerless  to  hinder. 
When  they  have  raised  their  voices  in  protest,  their 
patriotism  has  been  questioned.  It  is  impossible  to 
gauge  the  irritation,  pain  and  humiliation  they  have 
suffered.  Nevertheless  it  has  sometimes  struck  me  as 
odd  that  they  have  not  made  more  headway  against 
American  prejudice.  For  they  have  been  almost  the 
sole  champions  of  Germany's  cause  in  America,  and 
they  have  had  a  strong  logical  case  to  argue.  And  yet 
Americans,  in  the  mass,  have  not  been  brought  to  see 
the  validity  of  Germany's  major  contentions. 

For  one  thing,  German-Americans  have  not  always 
been  happy  in  their  defense  of  Germany.     They  have 

81 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

sometimes  used  phrases  to  the  detriment  of  facts.  For 
example,  in  seeking  to  combat  American  misconcep- 
tions, some  of  them  have  asserted  that  Germany  is 
"democratic"  and  that  Germans  enjoy  "personal  lib- 
erty." Now,  to  speak  plainly,  neither  of  these  state- 
ments is  true  except  in  a  qualified  measure.  No  gov- 
ernment which  maintains  such  rigid  property  qualifi- 
cations on  voting  as  does  Prussia,  and  which  gives 
such  large  powers  to  a  hereditary  ruler,  is  democratic 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  sense.  People  who  live  under  such 
a  multitude  of  police  regulations  as  do  the  Germans 
have  not  personal  liberty  in  the  American  sense.  Ger- 
man civilization  shows  many  lofty  virtues  which  other 
peoples  envy  and  have  not  attained ;  but  it  is  different 
from  ours.  These  things  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
case  anyway.  It  is  not  our  business  to  tell  the  Ger- 
mans, who  are  free,  enlightened,  educated,  what  sort 
of  government  they  shall  prefer,  any  more  than  it  is 
our  business  to  tell  the  Chinese  whether  they  shall 
have  a  republic  or  a  monarchy.  Americans,  after  all, 
are  not  so  provincial  as  to  want  every  nation  cut  from 
the  same  pattern, — least  of  all  their  own  pattern. 

And  also,  there  is  Mr.  Wilson ! 

German-Americans  have  been  censured  for  attack- 
ing President  Wilson's  foreign  policy.  This,  of  course, 
is  unjust.  The  very  persons  who  objected  when  Ger- 
man-Americans criticised  the  President  for  going  too 
far,  are  now  belaboring  the  President  for  not  going 
far  enough !  But  have  German-American  criticisms 
always  been  well  directed?     What,  precisely,  is  the 

82 


THK   ATTITUDK    OF    AMERICA 

complaint  tliey  have  to  make  against  the  administra- 
tion's course? 

In  general,  the  accusation  is  this:  that  the  United 
States  has  been  more  neutral  in  name  than  in  fact ; 
that  our  neutrality  has  been  highly  prejudicial  to  Ger- 
many and  highly  benevolent  to  the  Allies.  The  citizens 
of  Germany  and  Austria,  apparently,  are  convinced 
of  this;  they  do  not  think  this  country  gives  them  a 
square  deal.  Some  Englishmen  are  candid  enough  to 
admit  the  same  thing.  G.  Bernard  Shaw  recently  said : 
"I  may,  however,  remark,  that  America  is  not  neutral. 
She  is  taking  a  very  active  part  in  the  war  by  supplying 
us  with  ammunition  and  weapons  and  other  munitions. 
Neutrality  is  nonsense."  Quite  as  emphatic  is  Norman 
Angell :  "Indeed,  if  we  go  below  diplomatic  fictions 
to  positive  realities,  America  is  decisively  intervening 
in  the  war;  she  is  perhaps  settling  its  issue  by  throw- 
ing the  weight  of  her  resources  in  money,  supplies  and 
ammunition  on  the  side  of  one  combatant  against  the 
other.  The  American  government  has  without  doubt 
scrupulously  respected  all  the  rules  of  neutrality.  But 
it  would  have  been  equally  neutral  for  America  to  have 
decided  that  her  national  interests  compelled  her  to 
exercise  her  sovereign  rights  in  keeping  her  resources 
at  home  at  this  juncture  and  to  have  treated  combatants 
exactly  alike  by  exporting  to  neither.  This  form  of 
neutrality — just  as  legally  defensible  in  the  opinion  of 
many  competent  American  judges  as  the  present  one — 
would  perhaps  have  altered  the  whole  later  history  of 
the  war.     I  am  not  giving  you  my  own  opinion,  but 

83 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

that  of  very  responsible  independent  American  authori- 
ties, when  I  say  that  had  American  opinion  been  as 
hostile  to  the  Allies  as  on  the  whole  it  has  been  to 
Germany,  the  campaign  for  an  embargo  on  the  export 
of  arms  or  the  raising  of  a  loan  would  have  been 
irresistible.  You  see  I  am  speaking  with  undiplomatic 
freedom ;  saying  out  loud  what  everybody  thinks." 

The  foregoing  view,  it  seems  to  me,  is  unquestionably 
sound.  The  United  States  supplies  munitions  to  the 
Allies  not  in  normal  quantities,  but  to  the  value  of 
billions  of  dollars.  Our  plants  are  run  to  their  full 
capacity  ;  extensions  are  built ;  whole  new  factories  are 
erected.  War  orders  dominate  for  the  moment  our 
economic  life.  And  all  these  supplies  go  to  the  enemies 
of  Germany.  We  cannot  expect  a  German  to  be  much 
impressed  by  American  preachments  on  "humanity" 
and  "justice"  when  his  sons  have  been  shot  by  Ameri- 
can bullets.  And  what  galls  the  native  German  almost 
as  much,  I  suspect,  as  the  shipments  of  arms,  which  he 
knows  to  be  technically  legal,  is  the  supine  attitude  of 
America  toward  Great  Britain.  We  are  not  holding 
the  balance  even.  British  violations  of  neutral  rights^ 
are,  from  the  standpoint  of  international  law,  more 
reprehensible  than  Germany's  submarine  warfare, 
which  was  a  policy  of  reprisal.  Britain  has  killed  our 
trade  with  Germany  in  noncontraband  goods,  although 
not  maintaining  even  the  semblance  of  a  blockade  of 
German  ports ;  she  has  forbidden  our  trade  with  even 

'See  Economic  Aspects  of  the  War  by  Edwin  T.  Clapp,  New  Haven, 
1915. 

84 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF    AMERICA 

neutral  countries  of  Europe  (while  actively  trading 
with  those  countries  herself)  ;  she  has  stopped  Ameri- 
can vessels  and  taken  off  citizens ;  she  has  seized  the 
mails  of  the  United  States.  These  arrogant  violations 
of  our  rights  are  not  merely  technical ;  they  are  calcu- 
lated to  do  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  harm  to  the 
Central  Powers;  they  were  initiated  frankly  for  the 
double  purpose  of  starving  Germany's  population,  and 
of  effecting  Germany's  economic  ruin.  Neutrals  be 
hanged;  Britannia  rules  the  waves! 

What  has  the  United  States  done  to  stop  these 
wrongs?  Obviously,  nothing  effective.  Each  new 
"blockade"  order  is  more  offensive  than  the  last.  It  is 
illuminating  to  contrast  the  mild  and  polite  protests  of 
this  government  to  England  with  the  sharp,  menacing 
language  used  to  Germany.  Whenever  we  have  ad- 
dressed ourselves  to  England  or  France  we  have  said 
in  effect:  "My  dear  fellow,  can't  you  see  that  you  are 
in  the  wrong?"  Whenever  we  have  addressed  our- 
selves to  Germany  or  Austria  we  have  said  in  effect: 
"You  contemptible  ruffian,  quit  that  instantly!"  We 
have  used  threats  with  Germany,  persuasion  wnth  Eng- 
land. The  result  is  that  Germany  has  granted  our  de- 
mands, while  England  has  grown  more  arrogant. 

The  United  States,  in  order  to  make  its  neutrality 
one  of  fact  and  not  of  pretensions,  must  do  one  or  the 
other  of  two  things :  must  place  an  embargo  on  the 
export  of  arms,  or  break  the  British  blockade.  Per- 
haps the  latter  alternative  is  the  more  feasible.  Un- 
questionably an   embargo  on   munitions   should   have 

85 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

been  undertaken  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  for  both 
neutral  and  humanitarian  reasons.  But  now,  a  year 
and  a  half  later,  it  is  possibly  too  late.  Yet  this  swol- 
len industry  and  these  tremendous  shipments  of  the 
instruments  of  death  cannot  be  ignored.  They  over- 
shadow every  other  relation  of  America  to  the  strug- 
gle. They  constitute  us  in  fact  an  ally  of  the  Allies. 
If  they  may  not  now  be  stopped,  they  lay  on  us  the 
sternest  obligation  to  make  England  toe  the  mark. 
That  can  be  done ;  a  serious  threat  of  an  embargo 
would  help  the  British  lion  to  see  a  gleam  of  reason. 
And  unless  we  do  this  we  may  entirely  forfeit  the  re- 
spect and  friendship  of  the  Central  Powers, — a 
friendship  we  can  ill  afford  to  lose. 

German-Americans,  it  seems  to  me,  have  wasted  too 
much  verbal  shot  and  shell  on  President  Wilson.  After 
all  Mr.  Wilson  has  kept  us  out  of  the  fray.  It  is  not 
hard  to  think  of  other  prominent  Americans  who,  in 
his  place,  would  have  embroiled  us  long  ago!  There 
are  many  of  us  who  do  not  like  Mr.  Wilson's  diplo- 
matic methods ;  they  verge  too  much  on  a  policy  of 
drift.  But  we  prefer  them  to  bellicose  methods.  The 
power  of  the  President,  moreover,  has  its  limits.  Con- 
gress has  the  authority  to  place  an  embargo  on  the 
export  of  arms ;  the  Senate  has  the  final  word  in  for- 
eign relations.  German-Americans  should  work 
toward  two  ends,  I  think, — first,  to  make  our  neutral- 
ity genuine  and  impartial,  and  second  and  more  im- 
portant, to  keep  America  out  of  the  war.  That  danger 
has  by  no  means  passed.     To  accomplish  these  ends 

86 


THE   ATTITUOI-:   OF    AMERICA 

they  should  concentrate  on  American  opinion,  try  to 
squeeze  out  of  it  unfairness,  rancor  and  intolerance. 
Already  they  liave  accomplished  something  in  this 
direction.  The  tone  of  American  opinion  has  im- 
proved since  the  start  of  the  war.  But  there  still 
remains  much  ground  to  be  plowed. 

Ill 

The  people  of  the  United  States  have  escaped  the 
war  fever,  although  persistent  attempts  are  made  to 
arouse  them  to  a  fighting  mood.  Beyond  cavil  the 
citizens  of  this  country  are  bent  on  peace. 

Rudyard  Kipling,  whose  occupation  these  days  is 
to  out-Junker  the  Junkers,  has  proposed  the  pleasant 
little  toast:  "Damn  all  neutrals!"  Undoubtedly  Mr. 
Kipling  cocked  a  baleful  eye  at  the  United  States  when 
he  uttered  this.  We  could  afford  to  smile  at  Mr.  Kip- 
ling's spleen  if  he  stood  alone.  But  within  the  last 
year  many  militant  non-combatants  among  the  Allies 
have  cast  baleful  glances  at  the  United  States.  The 
indifference  of  America  offends  them  as  deeply,  ap- 
parently, as  the  hatred  of  their  enemy.  Why,  they 
ask  with  a  gesture  of  impatience,  should  Americans 
stand  aside  in  this  crisis  of  a  civilization  ?  \\niy  should 
they  allow  others  to  fight  their  battle  for  them — the 
battle  of  liberty  and  democracy?  And  these  critics 
of  ours  in  England  and  France  are  none  too  delicate 
in  attributing  motives  for  this  Yankee  apathy  toward 
their  noble  cause.  They  insinuate  we  are  too  busy 
making  dollars  out  of  others'  distress  to  heed  the  call 

87 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

of  the  spirit,  and  they  frankly  hint  that  when  we  say 
we  are  too  proud  to  fight  we  mean  too  cowardly. 

A  number  of  Britons  have  recently  unburdened 
themselves  on  this  subject  of  American  neutrality.^ 
Let  me  quote  a  few  of  the  choicer  passages : 

"We  fight  not  merely  for  our  threatened  selves;  we 
fight  for  the  liberty  and  peace  of  the  whole  world.  We 
fight,  and  you  Americans  know  we  fight,  for  you.  War 
is  a  tragic  and  terrible  business,  and  those  who  will 
not  face  the  blood  and  dust  of  it  must  be  content  to 
play  only  the  most  secondary  of  parts  in  the  day  of 
reckoning.  H.  G.  Wells." 

"On  the  last  question,  however, — the  future  of 
America  in  face  of  a  German  triumph — I  can  speak, 
if  not  with  authority,  at  least  with  certainty.  There 
is  simply  no  doubt  in  the  world  that  a  German  pow-er 
founded  on  the  breaking  of  France  and  England  would 
have  ultimately  to  break  America,  too,  before  its  work 
was  secure.  A  rich  and  disdainful  democracy  across 
the  Atlantic  is  something  which  the  German  Empire 
simply  could  not  afiford  to  tolerate.  If  Germany  gets 
as  far  as  that,  it  would  be  vain  to  discuss  whether 
America  should  fight,  because  America  certainly  will; 
and  in  that  fight,  please  God,  she  would  have  Burgoyne 
beside  her  as  well  as  Lafayette. 

G.  K.  Chesterton." 

"The  British  nation  would  certainly  be  much  grati- 
fied if  their  kinsmen,  the  Americans,  should  take  a 

"Everybody's  Magazine,  January,  1916. 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF    AMERICA 

hand  in  suppressing  the  'mad  bull  of  Europe.'  Eng- 
land would  certainly  be  greatly  benefited  if  America 
should  go  to  war  with  Germany.  Sir  Roper  Parking- 
ton,  M.  P.,  in  a  recent  speech,  said:  'If  the  Amer- 
icans should  join  the  Allies,  the  war  would  soon  be 
ended.'  Sir  Hiram  Maxim." 

"Personally.  I  have  always  held  that  America  would 
come  to  England's  assistance  if  ever  England  was 
hard  pressed.  Great  Britain  as  yet  is  not,  thank  God, 
in  a  hole.  Still,  it  has  puzzled  me  not  a  little  during 
the  past  year  to  assign  a  good  cause  for  America  re- 
maining neutral  in  this  awful  contest.  Is  not  America, 
just  as  much  as  Great  Britain,  a  lover  of  justice  and 
a  hater  of  such  atrocities  as  those  which  have  char- 
acterized the  warfare  of  the  Huns?  And  as  a  friend 
she  can  no  longer  stand  aloof  and  see  civilization,  and 
all  that  great  nations  are  bound  to  uphold  and  hold 
dear,  crushed  and  trampled  under  foot  by  barbarism 
and  'f rightfulness.'  I  am  quite  convinced  that  it  is 
the  unanimous  opinion  throughout  Great  Britain  that 
America  should  join  the  Allies,  and  it  is  undoubtedly 
a  fixed  hope  in  this  country  that  she  will  assuredly 
do  so  before  many  months  have  passed. 

General  Garnet  Wolseley." 

These  gentlemen  take  their  malice  and  themselves 
very  seriously.  But  they  have,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
totally  misjudged  the  trend  of  American  opinion  since 
the  outbreak  of  hostilities.  They  do  not  see  that 
Americans — outside     of     the     Anglomaniacs,     found 

89 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

chiefly  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard — passionately  de- 
sire peace  because  they  have  come  to  believe  that  peace 
serves  not  only  the  best  interests  of  themselves  but  of 
civilization  itself.  The  Middle  West,  the  West,  and 
the  South,  do  not  want  war,  will  not  have  war.  Even 
in  the  hypnotized  East  there  is  a  great  sober  element 
which  would  regard  a  plunge  into  this  welter  of  slaugh- 
ter as  the  worst  possible  calamity  to  the  Republic. 
Only  the  pro-Ally  fanatics  (who  are  the  most  dan- 
gerous hyphenates  we  harbor,  as  I  shall  attempt  to 
point  out  in  a  moment)  want  war  and  work  for  war. 
Americans,  in  other  words,  have  traveled  far  from 
that  naive  partisanship  for  the  Allies  which  charac- 
terized them  eighteen  months  ago.  What  has  wrought 
this  change  in  sentiment?  Chiefly  the  growth  of  a 
healthy  cynicism.  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  bulk  of 
Americans,  who  lie  in  opinion  between  the  red-hot 
pro-Germans  on  the  one  extreme  and  the  red-hot  pro- 
Ally  sympathizers  on  the  other  extreme.  This  great 
sane  mass  of  the  nation  has  disallowed  the  high- 
sounding  declarations,  the  grandiose  pretentions,  of 
either  side.  It  has  come  to  some  very  definite  con- 
clusions ;  it  believes  that  this  war  was  willed  by  gov- 
ernments, not  by  peoples ;  that  it  sprang  directly  from 
a  system  of  diplomatic  groups  and  military  alliances, 
each  of  which  was  trying  constantly  to  tilt  or  upset 
the  balance  of  power  in  its  own  favor;  that  the  only 
significant  rivalries  behind  the  mutual  hostilities  were 
imperialistic  rivalries ;  that  the  real  stakes  in  this  war 
are  colonies,  trade  pre-emptions,  strategic  ports  and 

90 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF   AMERICA 

straits,  and  above  all,  military  prestige;  that  militarism 
may  be  indicated  by  a  predominant  navy  as  well  as  by 
a  great  army,  and  that  its  essence  is  neither,  but  an  itch 
for  power  and  a  muddle  of  selfish  national  ambitions; 
that  militarism  is  not  exclusively  or  even  principally 
a  Prussian  disease,  but  a  European,  indeed,  a  world 
disease ;  that  despite  all  the  fine  phrases  about  free- 
dom, justice  and  democracy,  the  real  danger  to  civiliza- 
tion lies  in  the  war  itself  and  in  its  spread :  that  a  war 
of  imperialistic  rivalries  enlists  the  support  of  great 
populations  by  cant  and  by  lies  about  the  enemy ;  and 
that  as  the  struggle  grows  in  bitterness  and  in  extent 
of  bereavement,  both  sides — but  especially  the  losing 
side — become  fanatic  in  hatred  of  the  foe. 

In  brief,  Americans  refuse  to  be  impressed  longer 
by  sham  and  pose.  They  are  inclined  to  agree  with 
Francis  Delaisi,  who  predicted  in  1911  that  the  busi- 
ness magnates  and  the  politicians  were  about  to  plunge 
Europe  into  an  imperialistic  struggle.^  They  are  in- 
clined to  agree  with  Bernard  Shaw,  who  asserted  early 
in  the  conflict:  "All  attempts  to  represent  this  war  as 
anything  higher  or  more  significant  philosophically  or 
politically  or  religiously  for  our  Junkers  and  our 
Tommies  than  a  (juite  primitive  contest  of  the  pug- 
nacity that  bullies  and  the  pugnacity  that  will  not  be 
bullied  are  foredoomed  to  the  derision  of  history." 
Bryan  voiced  American  sentiment  when  he  called  it  a 
"causeless  war."    Of  course  the  phrase  is  inaccurate ; 


'The  Inevitable  War  (La  guerre  qui  tient),  by  Francis  Dtlaisi.     Paris, 
1911;   Boston,  1915. 

91 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

there  were  causes  enough,  such  as  they  were.  Rather 
it  should  be  called  a  witless  war. 

Another  reason  why  most  Americans  cannot  share 
the  views  of  the  solemn  Englishmen  above  quoted  is 
that  Americans  have  not  given  way  to  hatred  of  Ger- 
mans. We  regard  them  as  human  beings  much  like 
other  men  and  women,  not  as  "Huns,"  "savages"  and 
"beasts."  The  American  does  not  have  the  Briton's 
naive  belief  in  German  atrocities.  He  knows  that 
many  of  these  tales  (such  as  that  of  the  Belgian  child 
with  severed  hands)  have  been  disproved  a  hundred 
times.  He  hears  quite  as  frightful  reports  of  Rus- 
sian atrocities  and  of  French  outrages.  He  under- 
stands that  war  is  a  gruesome  business  and  that  it 
brings  out  some  of  the  basest  traits  in  human  nature; 
but  he  is  unwilling  to  heap  all  the  abuse  due  to  human 
nature  at  its  worst  on  Teutonic  nature.  Not  only  does 
the  American  show  a  wholesome  skepticism  toward 
the  atrocity  yarns  paraded  by  the  Allied  govern- 
ments ;  he  goes  further ;  he  feels  a  revulsion  of  disgust. 
He  wonders  why  men  who  are  gentlemen  attack  the 
reputations  as  well  as  the  soldiers  of  their  foes,  and 
keep  up  a  campaign  of  calumniation  which  they  know 
in  part  at  least  to  be  false,  a  campaign  at  once  mali- 
cious and  mendacious. 

Still  another  reason  why  the  American  feels  kindlier 
toward  Germany  is  that  he  has  a  high  respect  for 
German  civilization,  in  times  of  peace  at  any  rate. 
The  British  upper  classes  seem  always  to  have  re- 
garded  Germans  with  the  contempt  that  the  estab- 

92 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF   AMERICA 

lished  feel  toward  the  nouvcau  richc.  They  are  unap- 
preciative  of  German  poetry,  art  and  literature ;  they 
speak  of  boors  and  canaille ;  they  appear  to  have  gath- 
ered their  estimate  of  the  German  nation  by  watching 
a  fat  Berliner  eat  sauerkraut  in  a  beer-garden.  The 
American  on  the  other  hand  gives  German  civiliza- 
tion its  due,  even  though  he  be  one  who  deplores  its 
"militarism."  He  knows  that  German  music  and  Ger- 
man science  lead  the  world ;  he  admires  the  Germans 
for  their  educational  system,  for  their  municipalities, 
for  their  social  insurance.  Englishmen  have  often 
commented  on  the  paucity  of  learning  in  America,  and 
compared  our  culture  unfavorably  with  their  own ; 
and  perhaps  in  general  the  boast  is  justified.  But  in 
their  ignorance  of  the  real  Germany  and  of  German 
cultural  attainments  the  English  upper  classes  have 
shown  tiiemselves  to  be  precisely  what  Matthew  Arnold 
called  them — "barbarians." 

Our  British  critics  should  remember  that  Americans 
are  fully  competent  to  judge  for  themselves  what  the 
effect  of  a  German  victory  would  be  on  the  United 
States.  \\t  are  not  affrighted  over  hypothetical  Ger- 
man schemes.  We  know  perfectly  well  that  a  German 
victory  would  not  lead  to  the  "enslavement"  of  either 
England  or  of  France,  and  we  are  not  worried  about 
the  fate  of  Suez  or  of  India.  We  do  not  forget,  again, 
that  a  German  defeat  means  not  only  the  triumph  of 
British  imperialism,  but  the  triumph  of  Russia  and 
Japan.  We  would  rather  see  the  Balkan  peoples,  or 
the  races  of  the  Near  East,  Prussianized  than  Russian- 

93 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

ized.  And  most  vividly  of  all,  Americans  realize  that 
the  trend  of  world  politics  after  the  v^^ar  is  a  matter 
of  sheer  speculation.  It  is  all  guesswork;  no  one 
knows.  The  dread  designs  which  the  British  attribute 
to  the  German  government  are  deduced  from  enmity 
and  malice,  not  from  reason  or  clearheaded  calcula- 
tion. America's  answer  to  all  this  alarmist  talk  is  mili- 
tary and  naval  preparedness ;  we  shall  be  ready  to  meet 
aggression,  from  whatever  quarter!  So  far  as  South 
America  is  concerned.  Englishmen  would  do  well  to 
ponder  a  bit  the  pregnant  remark  of  Israel  Zangwill : 
"But  the  Monroe  Doctrine  would  lose  its  last  vestige 
of  meaning  if  America  intervened  in  a  European 
war." 

The  American  people  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  peace  is  their  duty.  This  is  not  from  fear,  greed 
or  sluggishness.  We  are  not  ultra-pacifists  in  this 
country ;  we  do  not  want  peace  at  any  price,  especially 
at  the  price  of  honor.  But  that  is  just  the  point:  we 
are  not  convinced  that  any  great  moral  principle,  or 
even  any  fundamental  issue  of  nationality,  is  at  stake 
in  this  conflict.  As  the  strife  in  Europe  grows  more 
desperate,  as  the  non-combatant  populations  show  a 
more  revengeful  and  hateful  temper,  the  war  seems 
more  and  more  remote  (except  to  the  Anglomaniacs) 
from  American  interests.  After  all,  why  should  Amer- 
ica feed  her  sons  to  this  carnage  by  the  thousands,  or 
the  hundreds  of  thousands?  Why  should  boys  from 
the  farms  of  Ohio,  Kansas  and  Texas  die  to  help 
France  take  Alsace-Lorraine,  or  the  Romanoffs  to  vic- 

94 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF   AMERICA 

timize  more  peoples  ?  What  have  we  to  gain  by  becom- 
ing, for  the  first  time  in  our  history,  entangled  in  mur- 
derous European  rivalries?  Why  should  we  abandon 
our  one  opportunity  of  service,  that,  as  President  Wil- 
son has  expressed  it,  of  keeping  the  "processes  of 
peace  alive,  if  only  to  prevent  collective  economic 
ruin"? 

At  the  start  the  mass  of  Americans  felt  both  an 
intense  loyalty  to  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  and  a  grip- 
ping horror  at  the  catastrophe  to  Europe.  Both  of 
these  feelings  have  to  some  extent  weakened.  The 
intellectual  classes  are  not  now  so  much  concerned 
over  the  military  outcome  as  over  the  prospective 
terms  of  settlement.  They  hope  that  both  sides  will 
act  with  a  measure  of  magnanimity  and  restraint  which 
will  give  some  basis  for  a  permanent  peace.  By  the 
common  man,  by  the  man  in  the  street,  the  war  is 
now  regarded  with  indifference,  indeed,  with  bore- 
dom. Our  vast  American  irreverence  has  asserted 
itself,  even  in  the  face  of  the  most  awful  battle  of 
history.  In  many  places  "war  talk"  is  tabooed,  con- 
sidered bad  form.  The  majority  of  Americans,  prob- 
ably, still  hope  to  see  the  Allies  win ;  but  their  interest 
is  sentimental  rather  than  vital.  It  is  not  the  breathless 
solicitude  of  one  who  watches  his  champion  do  battle 
to  save  him ;  it  is  rather  the  enthusiasm  of  the  baseball 
"fan"  who  cheers  for  the  home  team.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  the  favorite  American  quip  was: 
"I'm  neutral;  I  don't  care  who  beats  Germany."  At 
present  Americans  are  so  neutral  they  are  reconciled 

95 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

to  the  prospect  of  seeing  Germany  win,  if  she  can 
muster  the  strength.  This  growth  of  indifference  may 
gall  Englishmen,  Frenchmen  and  American  Tories. 
But  it  is,  I  submit,  a  patent  fact. 

IV 

There  is  a  conspicuous  element  in  America  which 
has  persistently  refused  to  see  this  war  through  Amer- 
ican eyes.  When  these  persons  look  at  contemporary 
history  they  look  at  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  Eng- 
lishmen and  Frenchmen ;  when  they  urge  action  they 
urge  it  in  the  interest  of  the  European  coalition  to 
which  England  and  France  belong.  They  are  our  pro- 
Ally  fanatics,  our  Anglomaniacs,  our  American  Tories. 
By  whatever  name  they  may  be  called,  they  have  one 
distinguishing  mark:  they  make  mock  of  our  neutral- 
ity. 

August  18,  1914,  before  the  war  was  a  month  old, 
President  Wilson  issued  an  appeal  for  restraint  in 
discussing  the  conflict.    The  President  said  in  part: 

"The  effect  of  the  war  upon  the  United  States  will 
depend  upon  what  American  citizens  say  or  do.  Every 
man  who  really  loves  America  will  act  and  speak  in 
the  true  spirit  of  neutrality,  which  is  the  spirit  of 
impartiality  and  fairness  and  friendliness  to  all  con- 
cerned. 

"The  people  of  the  United  States  are  drawn  from 
many  nations,  and  chiefly  from  the  nations  now  at 
war.  It  is  natural  and  inevitable  that  there  should  be 
the  utmost  variety  of  sympathy  and  desire  among  them 

96 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF    AMERICA 

with  regard  to  the  issues  and  circumstances  of  the 
conflict.  Some  will  wish  one  nation,  others  another, 
to  succeed  in  this  momentous  struggle.  It  will  be  easy 
to  excite  passion  and  difficult  to  allay  it.  Those 
responsible  for  exciting  it  will  assume  a  heavy  respon- 
sibility. 

"I  venture,  therefore,  my  countrymen,  to  speak  a 
solemn  word  of  warning  against  that  deepest,  most 
subtle,  most  essential  breach  of  neutrality  which  may 
spring  out  of  partisanship,  out  of  passionately  taking 
sides. 

"I  am  speaking,  I  feel  sure,  the  earnest  wish  and 
purpose  of  every  thoughtful  American  that  this  great 
country  of  ours,  which  is,  of  course,  the  first  in  our 
thoughts  and  hearts,  should  show  herself  in  this  tone 
of  peculiar  trial  a  nation  fit  beyond  others  to  exhibit 
the  fine  poise  of  undisturbed  judgment,  the  dignity  of 
self-control,  the  efficiency  of  dispassionate  action,  a 
nation  which  neither  sits  in  judgment  upon  others  nor 
is  disturbed  in  her  own  counsels  and  which  keeps  her- 
self fit  and  free  to  do  what  is  honest  and  disinter- 
ested and  truly  serviceable  for  the  peace  of  the  world." 

From  the  beginning  pro-Ally  sympathizers  have 
spit  upon  the  President's  words.  They  have  passion- 
ately taken  sides.  They  have  put  no  bridle  on  their 
tongues ;  they  have  poured  out  the  vilest  vituperation 
on  Germany.  With  asinine  self-complacency  they 
have  "sat  in  judgment"  on  the  nations  at  war,  and 
delivered  the  "American  verdict."  Although  finding 
themselves  largely  in  control  of  the  press,  they  have 

97 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

never  tried  to  speak  impartially,  never  attempted  to 
allay  passion.  On  the  contrary,  they  have  done  their 
embittered  best  to  lash  America  to  intolerance  and 
hysteria. 

Since  the  torpedoing  of  the  Lusitania  this  unneutral 
element  has  tried  to  rush  us  into  war  over  our  "rights." 
And  this  despite  the  fact  that  there  never  has  been  the 
slightest  excuse  for  going  to  war  over  that  issue.  On 
the  whole,  neither  side  has  offered  us  direct  offense. 
We  have  simply  been  caught  between  the  firing  lines. 
It  is  impossible  to  vindicate  neutral  rights  by  fighting 
one  side,  for  both  sides  have  infringed  those  rights. 
Should  we  war  on  Germany  we  should  fight  by  the 
side  of  allies  whose  interpretation  of  sea  law  is  no  more 
acceptable  to  us  than  that  of  our  foes.  Indeed,  a  sea 
monopolized  and  fortified  by  Great  Britain  may  in 
the  end  prove  more  disturbing  to  us  than  the  subma- 
rine indiscretions  of  Germany  and  Austria. 

Of  course  pro-Ally  sympathizers  insist  that  Ger- 
many's invasion  of  neutral  rights  have  cost  American 
lives,  whereas  England's  violations  result  in  merely 
commercial  and  economic  damage.  The  distinction 
is  hypocritical.  The  persons  who  work  themselves 
into  a  rage  over  Germany's  "slaughter  of  innocent 
women  and  children"  are  not  in  the  least  annoyed  be- 
cause German  babies  are  going  to  die  for  lack  of 
milk.  England's  violations  of  our  rights  have  been 
less  spectacular  than  Germany's ;  but  they  are  far  more 
insolent.  And  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  Fathers 
fought  the  Revolution  over  a  stamp-tax.    The  present 

98 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF    AMERICA 

administration  has  vindicated  the  right  of  Americans 
to  sail  through  war  zones  on  ships  of  beUigerent  na- 
tions (although  in  Mexico  it  warned  Americans  to 
leave  or  remain  at  their  own  risk).  But  it  has  not 
vindicated  the  right  of  Americans  to  use  the  high  seas 
for  legitimate  commerce.  Senator  Gore  summed  up 
the  matter  in  a  sentence:  "It  is  quite  as  important  to 
protect  the  right  of  Americans  to  ship  innocent  goods 
as  it  is  to  protect  their  right  to  risk  involving  this 
country  in  a  carnival  of  slaughter." 

The  submarine  controversy  has  dragged  itself  out 
month  after  month.  At  each  halt  in  the  negotiations 
our  traitorous  Anglomaniacs  have  rejoiced.  They  have 
implored  the  President  to  stickle  for  every  little  point 
of  international  law.  They  have  insisted  on  a  policy 
designed,  not  to  vindicate  our  rights,  but  to  sever  rela- 
tions. They  are  insatiate ;  no  concession  satisfies  them. 
Germany  declares  that  she  has  no  intention  of  molest- 
ing neutral  ships  and  neutral  commerce;  then  she 
yields  unconditionally  to  the  demand  that  unarmed 
merchantmen,  under  hostile  flag,  must  not  be  torpedoed 
without  warning  and  without  adequate  provision  for 
the  safety  of  passengers  and  crew.  Does  this  impair- 
ment of  the  submarine  w-eapon  placate  the  Anglo- 
maniacs  ?  Not  at  all ;  they  now  insist  that  Germany  and 
Austria  must  forbear  to  treat  armed  merchantmen  as 
auxiliary  cruisers.  It  is  not  enough  that  Americans 
may  travel  safely  on  American,  Dutch  and  Scandi- 
navian ships ;  not  enough  that  they  may  travel  without 
fear  on  unarmed  British,  French,  Italian  and  Japanese 

99 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

ships.  They  must  also  be  granted  the  right  to  travel 
without  danger  on  belligerent  vessels  carrying  arma- 
ment hypocritically  called  "defensive."  Sensible 
Americans,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  rightly  urge  that 
American  citizens  be  warned  to  stay  off  armed  bel- 
ligerent vessels.  But  our  frenzied  Tories  scream  that 
American  honor  is  at  stake.  Honor?  Great  Britain 
during  the  Russo-Japanese  war,  and  Sweden  during 
the  present  war,  warned  their  citizens  not  to  travel  on 
armed  belligerent  ships  save  at  their  own  risk.  Did 
England  and  Sweden  thereby  lose  their  national  honor? 
In  her  attitude  toward  so-called  defensive  armament, 
Germany  has  the  equity  on  her  side,  whatever  the  let- 
ter of  the  law  may  be.  This  is  a  trifling  "right"  for 
us  to  cherish ;  and  to  endanger  our  peace  for  it  would 
be  childish.  Its  defense  can  seem  important  only  to 
those  whose  minds  hold  a  hinterland  of  anti-German 
hate. 

In  the  name  of  honesty,  what  more  can  these  Ameri- 
ican  Tories  demand  of  the  United  States?  Has  our 
neutrality  been  interpreted  in  any  way  which  has 
given  aid  or  succor  to  the  Teutonic  Powers?  Have 
we  not  by  our  huge  shipments  of  arms  virtually  con- 
stituted ourselves  an  ally  of  the  Entente  ?  The  unvar- 
nished truth  is  this :  the  pro-Ally  fanatics  in  this  coun- 
try are  not  thinking  of  American  interests  at  all ;  they 
are  thinking  of  British  and  French  interests.  They 
ask  us  to  intervene  in  a  European  struggle  because  of 
their  opinion  of  the  European  right  and  wrong  of  it. 
They  want  us  to  go  to  war  despite  the  fact  that  our 

100 


THE   ATTITL'DE   OF    AMERICA 

youth  would  be  killed  and  our  wealth  destroyed  in 
a  quarrel  which  is  no  concern  of  the  American  people. 
They  demand  war  notwithstanding  that  it  would  im- 
peril our  international  relations  for  a  century.  They 
urge  us  to  fight,  knowing  full  well  that  in  our  opin- 
ions we  are  a  divided  people,  and  that  war  would  blast 
our  national  unity  and  run  a  cleavage  of  rancor  and 
hatred  through  our  cosmopolitan  population. 

These  Anglomaniacs  usually  disguise  their  intentions 
in  a  fog  of  fine  words.  Sometimes  they  are  more  can- 
did. In  New  York  City  there  is  an  organization  de- 
nominating itself  The  American  Rights  Committee. 
This  committee  has  issued  a  statement  which  reads : 

"Seventeen  months  of  the  European  war  have 
passed.  During  this  period  events  of  profound  sig- 
nificance have  occurred  and  issues  formerly  obscure 
have  become  clearly  defined.  The  brutal  violation  of 
Belgian  neutrality  has  been  followed  by  the  bombard- 
ment of  unfortified  places,  the  deliberate  killing  of 
non-combatants,  the  murder  of  women  and  children 
on  land  and  sea,  the  wholesale  massacre  of  the  Ar- 
menian people,  the  disclosure  of  gigantic  purposes  of 
world-conquest,  and  a  general  defense  of  these  un- 
speakable deeds  by  the  Teutonic  peoples. 

"Our  eyes  have  been  opened  to  facts  which  were 
not  fully  revealed  when  we  adopted  a  policy  of  neu- 
trality, and  the  situation  which  confronts  us  today  is 
not  that  which  confronted  us  in  August,  1914.  Then 
we  were  admonished  to  remain  neutral  toward  the 
European  crisis:  today  we  are  involved  in  a  world- 

101 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

crisis.  Then  we  followed  the  traditional  American 
policy  of  non-interference  in  European  political  strug- 
gles: today  we  are  called  upon  to  champion  the  im- 
mutable and  universal  rights  of  man.  Then  we  tried 
to  maintain  neutrality  of  thought  as  well  as  of  word 
and  deed :  today  the  Teutonic  Allies  have  forced  upon 
us  issues  which  render  neutrality  not  merely  impossible 
but  utterly  repugnant  to  the  moral  conscience  of  the 
nation.  Through  our  fuller  knowledge  of  the  events 
which  precipitated  the  war,  of  the  manner  in  which 
it  has  been  prosecuted  by  the  Teutonic  Allies,  and  of 
the  enormous  schemes  for  Teutonic  aggrandizement, 
we  have  come  to  understand  that  a  theory  and  method 
of  government  which  we  abhor  is  being  forced  upon 
the  world  by  military  might,  and  that  all  those  human 
liberties  which  our  nation  was  founded  to  maintain 
are  today  imperiled  by  the  possibility  of  a  Teutonic 
triumph." 

This  bombast  is  followed  by  a  "declaration  of  prin- 
ciples" : 

"1.  We  believe  that  there  is  a  morality  of  nations 
which  requires  every  government  to  observe  its  treaty- 
obligations  and  to  order  its  conduct  with  a  decent 
respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind. 

"2.  We  believe  that  the  Teutonic  Powers  have  re- 
pudiated the  obligations  of  civilized  nations  and  have 
raised  issues  which  lift  the  present  struggle  from 
the  sphere  of  European  political  disputes  to  a  crisis 
involving  all  humanity. 

"3.  We  believe  that  in  the  face  of  such  a  world- 

102 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF    AMERICA 

crisis  our  people  cannot  remain  neutral  and  our  gov- 
ernment should  not  remain  silent. 

"4.  We  condemn  the  aims  of  the  Teutonic  Powers, 
and  we  denounce  as  barbarous  their  methods  of  war- 
fare. 

"5.  We  believe  that  the  Entente  Allies  are  engaged 
in  a  struggle  to  prevent  the  domination  of  the  world 
by  armed  force  and  are  striving  to  guarantee  to  the 
smallest  nation  its  rights  to  an  independent  and  peace- 
ful existence, 

"6.  We  believe  that  the  progress  of  civilization  and 
the  free  development  of  the  principles  of  democratic 
government  depend  upon  the  success  of  the  Entente 
Allies. 

"7.  We  believe  that  our  duty  to  humanity  and 
respect  for  our  national  honor  demand  that  our  gov- 
ernment take  appropriate  action  to  place  the  nation 
on  record  as  deeply  in  sympathy  with  the  efforts  of 
the  Entente  Allies  to  remove  the  menace  of  Prussian 
militarism." 

It  would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  refute  these  state- 
ments. They  obviously  are  inspired  by  prejudice  and 
ill-will ;  they  obviously  treat  the  crassest  assumptions 
as  matters  of  fact ;  they  obviously  reveal  a  sophomoric 
conception  of  international  politics.  Nevertheless  these 
agitators  and  their  ilk  constitute  a  menace  to  the  peace 
and  security  of  the  United  States.  Preposterous  as 
their  utterances  are,  they  foster  malevolence,  for  in 
times  of  passion  declamation  passes  for  reason.  These 
Anglomaniacs   are  turning  their  backs  on  America; 

103 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

they  have  their  eyes  fastened  on  England,  Belgium 
and  France.  They  do  not  heed  American  opinion ;  they 
listen  to  the  advice  of  Englishmen.  They  are  our  true 
hyphenates.  They  are  the  real  traitors  within  our 
borders.  They  are  the  unloyal  element  that  has  intro- 
duced "corrupt  distempers"  into  our  national  life. 

For  these  American  Tories  there  is  only  one  ade- 
quate piece  of  advice :  Let  them  get  out !  Let  them 
enlist  and  take  their  places  in  the  English  trenches. 
Let  them  remember  that  the  seas  are  open  to  them; 
Brittania  rules  the  waves !  Their  hearts  are  in  France 
and  England ;  they  are  free  to  prove  their  sincerity 
by  risking  their  lives  there.  We  do  not  want  them  in 
America,  fighting  the  war  with  their  mouths,  seeking 
to  embroil  the  whole  nation.  I  am  aware  that  this 
advice  cannot  be  followed  by  many  of  our  most  violent 
pro-Ally  fanatics,  because  they  are  past  military  age. 
It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  our  bitterest  defamers  of 
Germany  are  old  men.  I  shall  not  be  invidious  enough 
to  mention  names;  but  just  recall  to  mind  the  leading 
American  Tories !  There  is  no  more  shameful  spec- 
tacle in  America  than  these  malignant  old  men,  waving 
their  fists  at  the  Kaiser,  mouthing  the  garbage  thrown 
to  them  from  Fleet  Street,  hounding  us  on,  shrilling 
for  a  sacrifice  of  American  blood. 


Most  thinking  men  and  women  agree  that  this  is  a 
time  for  America  to  keep  her  head  and  watch  her  step. 
Should  the  Teutonic  armies  continue  their  victories, 

104 


THE   ATTITUDE   OF   AMERICA 

and  approach  to  a  triumph,  the  efforts  of  hyphenated 
Anglo-  and  Franco-Americans  to  involve  us  will  be- 
come more  frantic.  But  that  collective  insanity  we 
shall  probable  avoid,  despite  their  fomentations.  We 
shall  do  the  world  the  negative  service  of  standing 
aloof.  But  it  seems  doubtful  that  America  will  be 
able  to  accomplish  anything  positive  for  world  peace, 
anything  constructive  for  the  future  security  of 
mankind. 

And  the  reason? 

Simply  this :  that  bigotry  cannot  reform  bigots ;  that 
prejudice  and  hatred  and  intolerance  cannot  heal  a 
world  gone  mad  with  hatred  and  intolerance.  Amer- 
ica cannot  effectively  fight  militarism  so  long  as  she 
thinks  injustice  to  Germany.  And  let  there  be  no 
mistake  about  that:  American  opinion  is  monstrously 
unjust.  It  is  as  unjust  to  Germany  now  as  was  British 
opinion  to  the  North  during  our  Civil  War.  America 
cannot  suggest  sensible  remedies  for  war  so  long 
as  she  holds  to  the  childish  notion  that  the  blood-guilt 
of  this  greatest  of  all  wars  is  a  personal  guilt  of  the 
German  military  caste  or  of  the  German  people. 

Fundamentally,  of  course,  none  of  the  great  govern- 
ments at  war  is  blameless.  We  do  not  have  here  white 
angels  fighting  black  fiends,  but  human  beings  all 
smeared  with  the  same  scarlet.  The  only  question 
open  to  debate  is,  who  is  smeared  the  less?  This  ques- 
tion finds  its  answer  in  the  recent  politics  of  Europe, 
the  history,  say,  of  the  ten  years  preceding  the  war. 
To  me  it  seems  that  any  philosophical  examination  of 

105 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

this  recent  history  gives  Germany  a  shade  of  advan- 
tage, a  sliglitly  superior  claim  on  our  moral  sympathy, 
both  for  the  character  of  her  aims,  and  her  honesty 
in  avowing  them. 

American  comment  on  the  war  appears  either  to 
have  overshot  the  mark,  or  undershot  it.  It  has  been 
either  too  naive  or  too  subtle.  First  of  all,  Americans 
made  up  their  minds  that  Germany  commenced  the 
war ;  that  she  was  the  "disturber  of  the  world's  peace." 
It  was  a  snap  judgment,  for  it  was  based  almost  exclu- 
sively upon  the  events  of  the  twelve  days  of  the  crisis. 
The  diplomatic  documents  of  the  European  govern- 
ments were  said  to  embody  the  "evidence  in  the  case." 
Never  was  evidence  flimsier.  The  different  govern- 
ments wrote,  selected  and  printed  what  they  wanted  the 
world  to  read.  The  dispatches  are  all  scissors  and 
paste,  and  sometimes  not  even  that,  but  plain  fabrica- 
tion, as  in  the  instance  of  the  notorious  No.  2  in  the 
French  Yellow  Book.  The  worthlessness  of  such 
"evidence"  for  unbiased  judgment  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  men  come  to  exactly  opposite  conclusions 
in  reading  it.  Judgment  depends  not  on  what  the  dis- 
patches say,  but  on  which  of  them  one  believes  true, 
and  which  one  rejects  as  false.  From  a  thorough  pe- 
rusal of  the  White,  Yellow,  Orange,  Gray,  Blue,  Red 
and  Green  Books,  every  person  emerges  with  precisely 
that  mental  colorblindness  with  which  he  started. 

Americans  condemned  Germany  at  the  beginning 
mainly  from  newspaper  accounts  of  the  crisis.  That 
snap  judgment  has  never  been  revised.    The  scholarly 

106 


THE  ATTITUDE   OF    AMERICA 

portion  of  American  opinion  has  busied  itself  chiefly 
in  explaining  what  it  assumed  to  be  true.  It  has  started 
from  the  premise  that  the  Teutons  precipitated  a 
world  war,  and  were  bitten  with  militarism.  So  it  has 
attempted  to  give  reasons  for  that  militarism.  It  has 
sought  to  trace  the  influence  of  Nietzsche  and  Treit- 
schke  on  the  Teutonic  consciousness ;  it  has  attempted 
to  derive  German  psychology  from  Kant ;  it  has  made 
elaborate  and  academic  contrasts  between  the  Latin 
and  Teutonic  civilizations, — and  so  on  through  fine- 
spun dialectics.  All  of  this  discussion  is  but  window- 
dressing  for  a  theory  and  a  prejudice. 

Some  thoughtful  Americans,  who  see  the  war  as  a 
logical  result  of  the  silent,  alert  struggle  in  Europe 
between  rival  alliances  for  a  balance  of  power,  cover- 
ing many  years,  state  a  conclusion  unfavorable  to 
Germany  in  restrained  language.  They  would  agree 
with  Prof.  Ellery  C.  Stowell :  "I  do  not  wish  to  be 
understood  as  thinking  that  Germany  really  wished 
for  war ;  but  by  her  conduct  she  gave  evidence  that 
she  intended  to  back  up  her  ally  to  secure  a  diplo- 
matic triumph  and  the  subjugation  of  her  neighbor, 
which  would  have  greatly  strengthened  Teutonic  influ- 
ence in  the  Balkans.  She  risked  the  peace  of  Europe 
in  a  campaign  after  prestige."  With  such  moderation 
it  is  hard  to  quarrel.  But  most  pro-Ally  Americans 
are  not  content  to  maintain  that  Germany  was  sixty 
per  cent  wrong  in  the  diplomacy  directly  preceding  the 
war;  they  assert  she  was  ninety-eight  per  cent  wrong, 
or  one  hundred  per  cent  wrong.     According  to  these 

107 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

uncompromising  partisans  she  plotted  a  war,  conspired 
for  it,  deliberately  provoked  it. 

To  support  the  charge  of  conspiracy  the  pro-Ally 
fanatics  surely  cite  the  well-known  facts.     They  un- 
doubtedly point  out  that  at  the  end  of  July,   1914, 
Germany  had  not  recalled  her  reserves  from  any  part 
of  the  world,  that  the  Kaiser  was  yachting  in   the 
North  Sea,  that  the  harvests  were  not  in,  that  the 
German  fleet  was  scattered  in  small  units  on  all  the 
oceans.    To  demonstrate  that  the  Entente  Allies  were 
innocently  ignorant  of  the  impending  crash  they  prob- 
ably call  attention  to  the  mobilization  measures  taken 
in  Russia  as  early  as  June,  to  the  timely  review  of 
the  English  fleet  in  the  early  summer,  to  the  trans- 
portation of  colonial  troops  to  France  several  weeks 
before  the  ultimatums.     They  unquestionably  go  fur- 
ther.    They  show  that  England  was  unprepared  for 
the  conflict  because  she  had  been  maintaining  the  two- 
power  naval  standard ;  France  because  she  practised 
conscription  and  had  recently  passed  the  Three  Year 
Law:  Russia  because  the  number  of  her  armies  and 
reserves  was  equal  to  those  of  Germany  and  Austria 
combined.      Germany,    they   say,   has   been   pursuing 
for  a  long  time  a  selfish  imperialistic  policy;  she  has 
been  seeking  colonies  and  trying  to  guarantee  markets 
for  her  export  products.     But  the  Allies  on  the  other 
hand  have  pursued  a  relatively  altruistic  policy;  they 
have  stood  for  the  status  quo;  they  guard  the  rights 
of  small  nations.    This  disinterestedness  of  the  Allies 
is  demonstrated  by  their  acquiring,  previous  to  war, 

106 


THE   ATT1TUD1-:   OF   AMERICA 

several  times  as  much  territory  as  Germany ;  by  their 
treatment  of  Morocco,  Finland  and  Persia ;  by  their 
penetrations  of  Arabia  and  China.  All  of  these  argu- 
ments lead  up  to  the  conclusion  that  Germany  is  the 
one  militaristic  nation,  and  that  her  ambitions  plunged 
a  guileless  world  in  strife.  Exactly  what  we  started 
out  to  prove ! 

But  after  all  the  warm  partisan  of  the  Allies  does 
not  reason  about  causes, — he  feels.  His  emotions  are 
dominant.  Having  determined  that  Germany  is  to 
blame  for  the  war,  he  judges  every  subsequent  issue 
unfairly.  Atrocity  tales  from  the  Entente  side  stir 
his  anger,  whereas  atrocity  tales  from  the  German 
side,  even  when  better  bolstered  by  proof,  fail  to  move 
his  imagination.  He  would  demand  that  the  United 
States  protest  the  violation  of  Belgium's  neutrality ; 
but  he  would  consider  it  silly  to  protest  the  violation  of 
Greece's  neutrality.  It  should  be  apparent  to  every 
thinking  man  that  the  Belgian  affair  must  of  necessity 
seem  more  reprehensible  to  the  pro-Ally  sympathizer 
than  to  the  sympathizer  with  the  Teutonic  Powers. 
The  latter  cannot  help  but  feel  that  Germany's  extreme 
peril  justified  the  passage  of  troops  across  neutral 
territory,  and  that  Belgium,  by  her  secret  agreements 
with  France  and  England,  by  her  French  sympathies, 
and  by  the  fact  and  character  of  her  resistance,  con- 
stituted herself  virtually  one  of  the  Allies.  Whether 
this  view  is  right  or  wrong,  the  fact  remains  that  had 
the  United  States  protested  the  invasion  of  Belgium 
she  would  not  have  been  acting  merely  in  the  interests 

109 


GERMANY  MISJUDGED 

of  international  law ;  she  would  have  been  "sitting  in 
judgment"  on  the  war,  she  would  have  been  taking 
sides.  In  any  event  it  is  not  the  business  of  the  United 
States,  where  American  rights  are  not  invaded,  to 
play  the  part  of  international  Pharisee  and  send  out 
protests  every  time  any  one  does  anything  we  deem 
"lawless"  or  "unrighteous."  If  we  adopted  that  policy 
we  should  be  shooting  out  protests  every  week.  What 
tribunal  appointed  us  the  judge  of  nations  and  their 
acts? 

This  is  a  time  pre-eminently  for  charity,  forbearance, 
friendliness  to  all.  It  is  not  a  time  for  imputing  bad 
motives,  for  recriminations.  The  war  is  the  logical 
result  of  imperialism,  of  rival  military  alliances,  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  balance  of  power.  The  dominant 
cliques  of  Europe  thought  a  war  inevitable.  It  has  for 
decades  been  the  business  of  these  cliques  to  plot, 
not  for  war,  not  for  peace,  but  for  successful  war. 
Possibly  both  sides  thought  the  hour  had  struck  in 
1914,  the  Germans  for  strategic  reasons,  the  Entente 
for  political  reasons.  Unquestionably  the  statesmen 
of  the  Entente  believed  at  the  beginning  they  would 
soon  crush  Germany  and  Austria,  that  the  300,000,000 
would  soon  overwhelm  the  130,000,000.  Their  coali- 
tion once  set  in  motion,  they  predicted  a  short  victo- 
rious war.  In  this  they  simply  misjudged,  they  under- 
estimated Germany's  strength  and  resources.  I  can- 
not believe  there  was  much  sinister  calculation  for  the 
precise  event  on  either  side,  except  possibly  by  the 
autocracy  and  military  caste  of  Russia.    On  the  whole, 

110 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  AMERICA 

Europe  simply  tumbled  into  war.  The  nations  had 
erected  rivalries  and  enmities  which  could  not  stand 
the  strain  of  a  real  crisis. 

If  America  wishes  to  accomplish  aught  for  peace 
within  the  next  year,  the  next  decade  or  next  quarter 
century,  it  must  face  the  real  situation.  It  must  grap- 
ple, intellectually,  with  an  evil  system,  with  an  inter- 
national problem.  Surely  Europe  is  not  training  itself 
to  solve  the  problem.  So  far  as  causes  are  concerned, 
this  war  was  not  a  people's  war.  But  today  it  has 
become  precisely  that.  Hate  has  eaten  into  the  vitals 
of  every  nation.  To  each  people  the  wickedness  of 
their  foe  seems  the  one  great  curse  upon  mankind. 
Blood-lust  and  revenge  are  re-enforced  by  moral  pur- 
poses. The  spirit  of  the  Inquisition  is  being  revived. 
It  hardly  seemed  possible ;  but  one  can  see  the  re-crea- 
tion of  that  hell  of  human  motives  in  England  and 
France — the  idea  of  saving  the  soul  by  torturing  the 
body, — of  redeeming  a  nation  by  killing  its  citizens. 
Possibly  Europe  will  recover  from  that  insanity.  Cer- 
tainly America  cannot  help  Europe  by  capitulating  to 
the  same  madness.  Only  by  the  exercise  of  dispassion- 
ate judgment  and  an  infinite  compassion  can  we  offer 
the  world  a  new  horizon  and  a  hope. 


Ill 


INDEX 


Algeciras,   Conference   at,   49,    51, 

52. 
Alsace-Lorraine,  73,  74,  77. 
America,   and  international   peace, 

8,  87-96,  105,  111. 
American     hostility    to     Germany, 

reasons  for,  18-20,  106-109. 
American  injustice  to  Germany,  37, 

38,  83-85,  105,  106. 
American  Rights  Committee,  quot- 
ed, 101-103. 
American    trade    in    munitions    of 

war,  41,  83-86. 
Angell,    Norman,   quoted,    83. 
Anglo-German  rivalry,  folly  of,  44, 

57,  64. 
Anglomaniacs,  American,  96-104. 
Anti-German  cabal  in  England,  53, 
Antwerp,  32,  48. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  93. 
Astonishment  of  Americans  at  the 

war,  21. 
Atrocities,  alleged  German,   33-36, 

92. 
Atrocities,   Russian,  34. 

Balkans,  23,  25,  55.  67,  77,  93,  107. 
Belgium,  invasion  of,  27-33,  45-49, 

109. 
Bennett,  Arnold,   56. 


Bismark,  61,  74. 

British  "blockade,"  84,  85. 

British  misunderstanding  of  Ger- 
many, 57-60,  92,  93. 

British  White  Book,  quoted,  46. 

Bryan,  W.  J.,  91. 

Bryce,  Viscount,  33. 

Causes  of  the  war,  24,  25,  53,  61, 
62,  90,  105,  107,  110. 

Censorships,  contrasted,  59. 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  quoted,  88. 

Civilization,  German,  59,  92,  93. 

Clutton-Brock,   A.,   quoted,    16. 

Colonies,  German  lack  of,  63,  78. 

Colored  troops,  used  by  Allies,  35, 
36. 

Congo,   52,   76,  IT. 

Cramb,  Professor,  quoted,  61. 

"Defensive",    France    on    the,    55, 

68-71. 
Delaisi,  Francis,  91. 
"Democracy",  in  Germany,  40,  82. 
Dernberg,   19. 
Dickinson,    G.    Lowes,    quoted,    8, 

23,  55,  67. 
Dum-dum  bullets,   35. 

England,  misjudgment  of  Germany, 
57-60,  92,  93;  relations  with  Bel- 
gium,     45-49;      relations      with 


INDEX 


France,  49-55;  relations  with 
Russia,  55-57;  attitude  toward 
America,  87-89,  84. 

Entente  Cordiale,  50,  54,  76. 

Essen,  31. 

Finland,  23,  57,  77. 

France,  spirit  of,  66,  78,  79;  "at- 
tacked", 27,  68-75;  entente  with 
England,  49,  50,  54;  alliance 
with  Russia,  67,  72;  colonial 
party  in,  54,  76. 

French  Yellow  Book,  106,  quoted, 
69. 

Franco-Prussian  War,  1870,  73. 

Franco-Russian  Alliance,  55,  67-73. 

German-Americans,  19,  80-86. 
German  civilization,  59,  92,  93. 
German   preparedness,   24,    38,   39, 

108. 
German  victory,  possible  results  of, 

40,  93,  94. 
German   White   Paper,  quoted,   26. 
Gore,  Senator,  quoted,   99. 
Great   Britain,  see  England. 
Grey,  Sir  Edward,  29,  45,  46,  50, 

52,  53,  77. 

Hague   Conventions,    35,   41. 
"Huns",   Germans  as,   33,   36,   57, 
89,  92. 

Injustice,  American  to  Germany, 
37,   38,   83-85,    105,    106. 

International  Law,  violations  of, 
35,  84,  98. 

Ireland,  49. 

Italy,   77. 


Kipling,    Rudyard,    87. 
Kropotkin,    Prince,    56. 

"Le   Martin,    52. 

Le  Temps,  52. 

Loans  to  Russian  Bureaucracy,  54, 

73,  77. 
Lusitania,  19,  98. 

Maxim,  Sir  Hiram,  quoted,  89. 
Militarism,  in   France,  76-78. 
Militarism  in  Germany,  8,  27,  60, 

62. 
Monroe  Doctrine,  94. 
Morel,  E.  D.,  quoted,  51,  52. 
Morocco,  50-52,  64. 
Munitions  of  War,  American  trade 

in,  41,  83-86. 

Napoleon,   71. 

Naval   Power,  British,  63. 

Neutrality,  of  America,   83-85,  95, 

96-101. 
Neutrality  of  Belgium,  27-33,  45-49, 

109. 
Non-combatant   mind,    degradation 

of,    13,   35,    111. 
Peace,     America's    interest    in,    8, 

87-96,  105,  111. 
People's  war,  not  a,   75,  90. 
Preparedness,  American,  94. 
Preparedness,  of  Allies,  39,  108. 
Preparedness,  of  Germany,  24,  38, 

39,  108. 
Pro-.Mly    parWsans   in   the   United 

States,  96-104,  106-108. 

Recruiting  campaign,   14,  29,  34. 
Revanche,  54,  74. 


INDEX 


Russia,    true    nature    of,    23,    24, 

SS-S7,  72,  73. 
Russian  Orange  Book,  quoted,  68. 

Saturday   Review    (British),   61. 
Sazonof,  68. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  quoted,  71. 
Secret  diplomacy,  29,  45,  50,  S3. 
Servia,    relation   to  Austria,   26. 
Shaw,  G.  Bernard,  quoted,  28,  83, 

91. 
Spain,  50. 
Stowell,      Professor      Ellery      C, 

quoted,   107. 
Submarine  controversy,  98-100. 

Three   Year    Law,   in   France,   76, 
108. 


Tolstoy,  23,   56. 
Treitschke,  37,  61,  107. 

Usher,   Roland  G.,  quoted,   30. 

Viviani,   55,   68,  69. 

Von  Schoen,  Ambassador,  69. 

War,  causes  of  the,  24,  25,  53,  61, 

62,  90,  105,  107,  110. 
Wells,  H.  G.,  quoted,  88. 
Westphalia,  31. 

Wilson,  President,  82,  86,  95,   96. 
Wister,   Owen,  quoted,  38. 
Wolseley,  General  Garnet,  quoted, 

89. 

Zangwill,   Israel,   quoted,   94. 


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